UNION OF INDIA Vs. GOURI SANKAR RATHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application by the Union of India represented by the Post Master General, Calcutta, for revision of a decree in favour of Gouri Shanker Rathi, opposite party No. 1, for a sum of Rs. 700, with costs. The facts as far as they are admitted or beyond dispute are that opposite party No. 2, who happens to be a younger brother of opposite party No. 1, sent in an insured cover from Jaipur, Post Office Bikaneer, Rajasthan, on the 6th November, 1954, a sum of Rs. 2,000. This insured cover appears to have been put by the Postal Department in a protective cover which also was sealed by the Postal Department. When the insured cover in that protective cover reached the destination it was delivered to the addressee, opposite party No. 1, and the addressee opened it in presence of the Postmaster himself, found that although the seal of the insured cover was intact it was damaged and on opening the insured cover it was found that instead of a sum of Rs. 2,000 for which the cover had been insured there was only a sum of 1,300 and there were some pieces of paper also inside. The applicant as defendant took various defenses but now for the (purpose of this application it is unnecessary to refer to them.

(2.) THE only question now raised is whether the compensation that is payable for the shortage is payable to the sender, i. e. , opposite party No. 2, or to the addressee, viz. , opposite party No. 1. The amount, as appears from the chalan of the record, was deposited in court to the credit of the plaintiff, opposite party No. 1 on the 6th November, 1956 on behalf of the applicant it is urged that section 33 of the Indian Post Office Act, 1898, makes the compensation payable only to the sender and not to the addressee. Section 33 runs as follows:

(3.) IT is argued on the strength of this that the compensation would be payable to the sender and the sender alone. Section 33 to my mind, lays down the general rule under which compensation will be payable normally to the sender in the event of loss of the postal article or its contents or in the event of any damage caused to it in the course of transmission by post. But that will not debar the rightful owner from claiming compensation for the article lost. Under the general law it is the sender who will be entitled to compensation, because there is a contract as between the sender and the Postal Department and there is no contract, either express or implied, between the addressee and the Postal Department. There is also another reason why section 33 makes the compensation payable to the sender in the event of loss. When the entire article is lost the addressee will have no proof of his claim to it. But the sender can always produce the receipt which he has from the Postal Department when handing over an insured cover for delivery to some one else. In the event, however, of a partial loss of the contents or a total less of the contents, though the article itself is intact, of course, this argument will not be applicable, for there the postal article may be delivered to the addressee; but till its delivery the addressee cannot be expected to have any evidence by which he can prove that the postal article belongs to him. That is probably the reason why the section makes the compensation normally payable to the sender. But that does not in any way take away the right of a rightful claimant, provided that right is well established. In this ease there is no doubt that the plaintiff-opposite party is the rightful claimant and the Postal Department actually delivered to him the postal article in question. It is also the finding of the learned court below that the money sent by opposite party No. 2 to opposite party No. 1 really was joint family property of a Mitakshara family and belonged: to opposite party No. 1. That being so, there can be no room for dispute that the money in this case belonged to opposite party No. 1 and the plaintiff opposite party No. 1 has made the claim in presence of the sender who was added as a pro forma defendant in the suit and the opposite party No. 2 has not contested that claim. As I have already said, section 33, while it lays down the normal rule by which compensation is payable to the sender, does not in any way take away the right of the rightful owner to receive this compensation. In this view the application cannot succeed and must accordingly be dismissed. The Rule is accordingly discharged with costs.