BENARES BANK LIMITED Vs. S C H MEYER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal against a judgment and order of the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal dated April 7, 1936, which affirmed on appeal a judgment of the said Court in its original insolvency jurisdiction dated June 18, 1935, whereby inter alia the present appellant's exceptions to the findings and report of the Registrar in insolvency, dated respectively December 15, 1934, and February 26, 1935, in insolvency-cases Nos. 137 and 166 of 1911, were discharged.

(2.) FIVE persons, who were carrying on business in Calcutta as merchants and agents under the name and style of M. L. Laik and Banerjee, were adjudicated insolvents by the High Court, three of them on June 15, 1911, and the other two on July 14, 1911. On June 4, 1913, the creditors of the insolvents, including the appellant, approved a scheme of composition, and the two insolvency cases having been consolidated, the Court approved the composition on September 15, 1913, and both adjudication orders were annulled on March 15, 1916, after the necessary transfers contemplated by the scheme had been completed. It may be stated that the scheme provided for the ultimate payment in full of the secured creditors and for the payment of eight annas in the rupee to the unsecured creditors, with the exception of some relatives of the insolvents who gave up their claims. The scheme was guaranteed by certain persons, who agreed to transfer and convey certain properties to the Official Assignee to be used in satisfaction of the creditors' claims; the appellant was to be finally paid off last, but was to receive interest meantime at six per cent, per annum.

(3.) IT may be mentioned that on February 18, 1915, all the guarantors under the scheme, with one exception, entered into a deed of transfer in favour of the Official Assignee in modification of the scheme, but it has been held by the Appeal Court, in a judgment dated January 5, 1932, that this deed cannot be enforced in the insolvency proceedings, as the requisite procedure had not been complied with. IT is therefore not material to the present question.