VALARSHAK SETH APCAR Vs. STANDARD COAL COMPANY LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal from a judgment and decree of the High Court at Calcutta in its civil appellate jurisdiction (dated February 28, 1941), which reversed a decree of the Court in its ordinary original civil jurisdiction (dated August 8, 1939) pronounced in an action in which the plaintiff (now the appellant) sued the four respondent coal companies to recover brokerage. The trial Judge (Lort Williams J.) gave the plaintiff the relief which he sought, but on appeal the Chief Justice and McNair J. dismissed the action.

(2.) THE case is one of difficulty in that the rights of the parties depend upon happenings which took place many years ago, viz. at the end of the year 1919 and early in the year 1920, while the action was tried in the year 1939, and the truth has to be ascertained from the documents and the recollections of three witnesses, viz. the plaintiff, whose evidence was given in the witness-box before the trial Judge, and two witnesses for the defence whose evidence was taken on commission in England in the month of October, 1938. A feature peculiar to the case is this :-That while the trial Judge who saw the plaintiff, heard him give his evidence and was in a position to observe his demeanour as a witness, accepted him. as an honest and straightforward witness with a good memory for main facts, but as might be expected after such a lapse of time, not for dates or minor details," the High Court on appeal rejected the trial Judge's opinion, thought the plaintiff lacking in candour, and disbelieved his evidence.

(3.) THE plaintiff, after he became aware of the execution of this second contract, and that deliveries were being made under it, brought his action claiming brokerage commission thereunder as being a contract which resulted from his introduction of seller to buyer.