SUTLEJ COTTON MILLS LTD Vs. RANJIT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal is against an appellate judgment and decree of Mr. Gurcharan Singh, Senior Subordinate Judge, Ludhiana, allowing the appeal against a decree of the trial Court dismissing the plaintiff's suit.

(2.) The plaintiff brought this suit against the defendant-company alleging that, during the disturbances of 1947 it was given out on behalf of the Company that these employees who would continue to work in their poses would be Protected by them in regard to their person and property and the Company would be responsible for the same, that in August 1947 the Secretary told the plaintiff and other employees that they should lock up their goods and leave them in his charge and that the company would be liable for everything and that at the end of the disturbances the plaintiff and the other employees would be sent for and thus he left his goods with the defendant-company a list of which is given in Schedule 'A' attached to the plaint. He further alleged that it became impossible for him to return and through Mr. M. C. Gowen an attorney and servant of the defendant company, the defendants informed him that new cloth could not be sent to India and therefore if the plaintiff was agreeable it could be sold there and after the sale a full account would be rendered to which the plaintiff agreed. The suit is for rendition of accounts against the defendant-company.

(3.) The defence was that a suit for accounts did not lie, that no servant of the company could act contrary to the bye-laws and articles of association of the company and the company was not therefore liable and the Secretary was not authorised to accept the goods nor to give any such assurance as is alleged in the plaint, that the servants of the company could not bind the company to render any accounts. This suit was dismissed by the trial Court, but on appeal the suit was decreed. The appellate Court held on the evidence that Brjj Lal Jajoo was the general attorney of the company in Pakistan who sold the goods of the plaintiff which Were left in the plaintiff's quarters in the mill premises, that he deposited the sale price with the company for payment to the plaintiff and thus the company was liable and that a suit for accounts lay. The company has come up in appeal to this Court.