KOTHARAJU NARAYANA RAO Vs. TEKUMALLA RAMACHANDRA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the defendant and arises out of a suit brought by the respondent-plaintiff to recover from him a sum of Rs. 13,600.00 being the principal and interest due to a promissory note Ex. A-l dated 30-7-1949- The promissory note was executed by him in favour of one Sri G. Ch, Venkatachalam and was endorsed by the latter on 27-7-1953 to the plaintiff for collection. The main dispute between the parties relates to the truth of the consideration for the instrument.

(2.) The facts necessary to appreciate the dispute are briefly as follows: The defendant as the manager of his joint family owns a site measuring Ac. 1-98 cents at Guntur. It was being leased out on a rent of Rs. 2,000.00 per year to the I.L.T.D., Company Ltd., (hereinafter called the Company"). They were occupying it as lessees continuously since 1926. It was a strip of land situated between two plots owned by them. So they desired to purchase the site from the defendant. Negotiations were carried on from about May 1949 through D. W. 1 on the one hand, and the plaintiff on the other. D. W. 1 was a barrister practising at Guntur and the standing counsel of the Company. The plaintiff was a vakil practising at Masulipatam and negotiated on behalf of the defendant. The proper price of the site was about Rs. 72,000.00, because a similar site, measuring Ac. 0-96 cents and at a distance of about 50 yards from it, was sold in May 1949 by one N. Radhakrishnamurthy to the Company for Rs. 35,000.00. But the defendant wanted to exploit the anxiety of the Company to purchase his site and get a net price of a lakh of rupees. The correspondence between the plaintiff and D. W. 1 shows that on 29-7-1949 as per Ex. A5, the Company agreed to the price of Rs. 575.00per cent., at which the site was offered in the plaintiffs letter, Ex. B-l dated 9-7-1949. The price works out to a little over Rs. 1,12,000.00 for the entire extent of the site. The plaintiff says that the Company agreed to this exorbitant price, because of the intervention of his cousin (mothers sisters son), Sri G.Ch. Venkatachalam, with Mr. Johns ton, the Manager of the Guntur Circle of the Company and that Sri G. Ch. Venkatachalam intervened because at a meeting earlier in the first week of June 1949 the defendant and his brother had agreed to pay Rs. 10,000.00 for his services, provided that a lakh of rupees was secured for themselves. We find that on the very next day after the price was accepted on behalf of the Company as per Ex. A-5, the defendant executed the suit promissory note Ex. A-1 for Rs. 10,000.00 to Sri G.Ch. Venkatachalam. Ex. A-l was admittedly written by the plaintift and signed by the defendant and runs as follows: "Promissory note by Ketharaju Narayana Rao, son of Sitaramaiah Garu of Chemmanagiripeta, Musulipatnam to Sri G.Ch. Venkatachalani Garu (now at Rajahmundry) camp: Masulipatnam. I agree to pay you or to your order on demand the sum of Rs. 10,000.00 (rupees ten thousand) only being the amount my brother Ketharaju Jagannadha Rao and I have agreed to pay you for bringing about the sale to the I. L. T. D. Co. Ltd., Guntur. of our site in Guntur (which is now leased out to the said company) with interest thereon at 12 per cent., (twelve per cent.) per annum from this day till realisation. Executed this 30th day of July, 1949. Sd. Ketharaju Narayanarao." The sale of the site, however, did not actually come off. As there were no less than seven minors in the defendants joint family, D. W. 1 wanted a portion of the consideration to be utilised for discharging antecedent debts and sufficient immoveable property to be furnished as security for the minors share of the consideration. But the defendant did not produce the antecedent debt books. Therefore, apart from the question of the adequacy of the security, D. W. 1 was not satisfied that the defendant had a marketable title and dropped the negotiations in 1950 or 1951.

(3.) The plaintiffs case is that Venkatachalam had done everything in his power to bring about the sale and that the sale fell through because the defendant backed out of the transaction. He brought the suit on 80-7-1952 to enforce the defendants liability under the promissory note.