NATIONAL BANK OF LAHORE Vs. SOHAN LAL SAIGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE three appeals (Regular First Appeals Nos. 136, 137 and 138 of 1959)arise out of three suits, which have been decreed by the trial Court in the sum of rs. 23,993/4/-, Rs. 16,509/- and Rs. 11,055/-in favour of Sohan Lal Saigal and others, Shrimati Lila Vati (daughter of Shrimati Ram Piari, the latter having died meanwhile), and Shrimati Durg Devi respectively. All these appeals will be disposed of this judgment.

(2.) THE appellant-Bank used to maintain a safe deposit vault in the Bank premises at Jullundur City where it kept locker cabinets for the safe custody of the Jewellery and other valuables of its customers who might wish to hire them. The Head Office of the Bank and issued certain instructions to the branches regarding the operation of these lockers (Exhibits P. 2 and P. 2/a at page 223 of the paper-book in Regular first Appeal No. 136 of 1959 to which alone at references shall be made hereafter ). The vault was to remain under the joint control of the cashier and the custodian. If no separate custodian was appointed, it had to remain under the joint control of the manager and the cashier. The Master-key and keys of unleased lockers overnight wee always to remain under the joint control of the cashier and the Manager like the Bank's cash and other articles. Lockers had to be operated in the presence of two representatives of the Bank. As and when the lockers fell vacant, the licks had to be replaced new keys were to be obtained from the company which were to be received duly sealed and the seals had to be broken in the presence of the client only. If there were more than two keys belonging to a safe and the our door the strong room, one key in each case was to be given to the Accountant. In a letter addressed by the Personal Assistant to the General Manager of the Bank to all branches (Exhibit P. 25 at page 180), it was stated that a recent inspection had importance to the safe custody business. It was pointed cut that the Bank accepted great responsibility in running the safe deposit vault and accepting articles for safe custody. Utmost Precaution and vigilance were to be exercised so that there was to loophole or shortcoming in the observance of the various formalities. Notwithstanding all this it appears that the Bank authorities entrusted the task of being the custodian of the deposit vault in the Jullunder Branch of the bank to its Manager, Baldev Chand, alone.

(3.) IN all the three suits certain lockers were taken by the plaintiffs on different dates for depositing their jewellery and valuables but those articles kept by the plaintiff in their respective lockers were ultimately found missing. The trial Court found that Baldev Chand had the exclusive control over the locker cabinets lying in the strong room of the Bank. The keys of the strong room were kept by personally and not in any safe. The custodian's key was also only one for all the lockers and the same used to remain with him. The renter's keys of the unleased lockers used to remain in an iron almirah kept in his room and the key of that almirah was also kept by him. The plaintiffs had alleged that before the lockers had been rented out to them by the Manager, he had filed off the levers of the renter's portion of which they had no knowledge, with the result that any key could open and be applied to the renter's portion and it was not necessary to take the help of the renter's key which was in his possession. These facts, according to the trial Court, had been established by the evidence, which was produced in the suits, and by other facts and circumstances. Indisputably the Manager used to reside in the upper portion of the Bank's premises so that he had ample opportunity to carry out his nefarious design of tampering with the locks of the lockers. An attempt had been made by the counsel for the Bank in the trial Court to create some sort of suspicion that the Godrej Company, which had supplied the locks, had sent defective ones, but the Court found that there was no ground for any such suggestion. The conclusion at which the trial Court arrived was that the act of letting out of the trial Court arrived was that the act of letting out the lockers, which had been tampered with the safety of the ornaments of the plaintiffs, was clearly a fraud on the part of the Manager and after stealing them, he had misappropriated the same.