MANNULAL NANNULAL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision under section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act is directed against a decree of the First Additional District Judge, Sagar, empowered under section 9 of the Madhya Pradesh Civil Courts Act, 1958, whereby the applicant's claim for Rs. 748.62 as damages for short delivery of oil consigned for transport by rail was dismissed.

(2.) THE plaintiff is a registered firm and carries on business at Sagar. Messrs Khanna and Hariraj booked for transport by rail at railway risk a consignment of 385 tins of oil consisting of 335 tins of vegetable oil and 50 tins of refined groundnut oil from Wadi Bandar to Sagar vide Railway Receipt No. 517703 dated the 11 December 1963 and Invoice No. D/379. The Railway Receipt was endorsed in favour of the plaintiff firm which took open delivery of the goods on 30 December 1963. It was then found that, while the vegetable oil tins retained all the oil contained in them, 14 of the tins containing groundnut oil were empty and in the other 36 tins, there was a shortage of 84.8 kilograms of groundnut oil.

(3.) THE Railway Administration resisted the claim inter alia on the ground that the senders themselves had stated in the forwarding note that the tins were not packed in cases. The Small Cause Court accepted this defence and dismissed the suit on the basis of the provisions contained in section 770 (1) of the Railways Act.