SAMRATHMAL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a first appeal by the plaintiff, a joint Hindu family firm, whose suit for equivalent Citation: damages, amounting to Rs. 11,301-3-6, for the lass suffered by it on account of late delivery of goods as also their deli-very in a deteriorated condition has been dismissed by the Additional District Judge, Balaghat, on the sole ground that the notices served by it on the respondent railway companies under Section 77 of the indian Railways Act and under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure were not legal and valid for the purposes. of the claim in suit.

(2.) SETH Samrathmal and Seth Ratanchand are real brothers and they constitute the plaintiff joint Hindu family firm which is carrying on business at Balaghat under the name and style of 'firm Dhanraj Samrathmal, Balaghat'.

(3.) ON 3-3-1950, one Maganlal Sualal booked a consignment of 123 bags of chillies, weighing 85 maunds, at Mandsaur, a railway station on what is now known as the Western Railway (then known as the Bombay Baroda and Central india Railway) under invoice No. 1, and railway receipt No. Q/1-32496, to Lamta, a railway station on what is now known as the Eastern Railway (then the Bengal nag-pur Railway ). The consignment was booked to self, but the railway receipt was sent to the plaintiff firm, through a bank. The plaintiff firm duly got possession of the receipt on making the required payment to the bank. The railway receipt also contained on it an unsigned endorsement, 'please deliver to Dhanraj samavthmalji, Balaghat' (see Ex. D-1 ). Out of the aforesaid consignment, 11 bags of chillies arrived at Lamta railway station on or about 3-4-1950. The remaining 112 bags were missent to Allahabad from Ujjain, and those bags ultimately arrived at Lamta railway station on or about 16-9-1950. The defendant-respondent railways did not adduce any evidence of the circumstances under which the 112 bags of chillies were missent to Allahabad - while under transhipment at Ujjain.