PREMIER AUTO INDUSTRIES Vs. BHARAT RAJ GOYAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is plaintiffs' appeal and it arises out of a temporary injunction matter. Although plaintiffs/appellants are threesome, the real man who has taken up the cudgel is plaintiff/appellant No. 2 Prem Kumar Oberoi and on the other side, similarly, it is defendant No. 2, K, V. Sachdev who has to bear the brunt of the attack. Paradoxically, however, in the instant appeal, relief is claimed mainly against defendants/respondents 3 and 4, corporate bodies; No. 3, is "press Area Branch, New Delhi" and No. 4 is "jayendraganj Branch, Gwalior", both of the same nationalised Bank, Central Bank of India.

(2.) WHEN the suit was instituted on 16-8-1989, the Bank was not impleaded; inly on 15-3-1990, the two branches of the Central Bank of India were impleaded as defendants 3 and 4. Significantly, an order of ad interim temporary injunction was obtained by the plaintiffs on 18-8-1989 for maintaining "status quo" which appears to have been modified On 5-12-1990 in view of subsequent events impinging on rights and liabilities of the Bank. By that order, the Bank is restrained from reversing the credit for Rs. 11. 33 lakhs, given to plaintiffs in respect of a transaction relating to sale of machineries by the plaintiffs to the defendants.

(3.) SHORTLY put, plaintiffs' case was that an agreement was executed on 7-9-1987 between Prem Kumar Oberoi and Vinod Chaddha on the one side (first party) and Bharat Raj Goyal and K. V. Sachdev on the other side (second party) under which, for a price of Rs. 12,00,000/-, certain machineries (described in Schedules annexed thereto) had been sold (under terms and conditions contemplated thereunder) to the second party. Shorn of frills, the case of the plaintiffs, was for a declaration that under the said agreement, the defendants, before they removed the machineries, must make payment of Rs. 1,40,000/- together with interest thereon of Rs. 64,500/- and licence fee for the shed of Rs. 10,000/- along with electric charges - Rs. 8,400/ -. Without paying in that manner total sum of Rs. 2,29,000/-, the defendant had no right to shift the machineries in question from Gwalior to Faridabad and the plaintiffs were entitled to a permanent injunction in that regard. By amending the plaint, other reliefs were added claiming that the defendants had no right to use goodwill of the plaintiff firm, Premier Auto Industries, Gwalior, and that they be also restrained from rescinding the, contract dated 7-9-1987 and from getting refund of the price which the Bankers had already paid for the machineries to the plaintiffs. The two original defendants filed jointly on 5-4-1990 their written-statement and the newly-impleaded defendants, two branches of the same Bank, filed jointly on 2-7-1991 their written statement.