PUSHPAWATI Vs. UNITED COMMERCIAL BANK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has filed this revision petition challenging the order and judgment passed by the learned District Judge, Simla Division, Simla, dated 17th of November, 1978, affirming the order dated 12th December, 1977, passed by the subordinate judge, Simla, to the effect that the civil court at Simla had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit of the petitioner and directed the return of the plaint to the petitioner for presentation to the proper court.

(2.) THE facts of the case may be stated. The petitioner filed a suit against the respondents for the grant of a declaratory decree to the effect that she was entitled to receive the payment of the amount of the fixed deposit receipts detailed in the plaint. The total principal amount in respect of the fixed deposit receipts amounted to Rs. 29,000. A mandatory injunction was also prayed to be issued directing the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 to pay the amount of the fixed deposit receipts along with interest, to the petitioner. It is alleged in the plaint that the petitioner at the instance of respondent No. 3 went to Chandigarh and got deposited through him an amount of Rs. 29,000 in fixed deposit with respondent No. 2 bank at Chandigarh. It is further alleged that the petitioner approached the manager of the respondent No. 2 bank and produced the fixed deposit receipts for payment, but he refused to make payment on the ground that respondent No. 3 had instructed him on 29th of October, 1975, not to pay the amount of the said fixed deposit receipts to the petitioner except for the interest accruing thereon. It is further contended in the plaint that the petitioner came to know that the respondent No. 3 had dishonestly and fraudulently got his name also inserted in the said fixed deposit receipts besides the name of the petitioner. It appears that in the fixed deposit receipts the name of the petitioner is given first and thereafter the name of the respondent No. 3 is incorporated and the money in respect of the said fixed deposit receipts is payable to either or survivor. The case of the petitioner is that the total amount of the fixed deposit receipts is payable to the petitioner and when she produced the fixed deposit receipts before the manager of the bank at Chandigarh, the bank withheld the payment, saying that since the respondent No. 3 had directed the bank to pay only the interest to the petitioner the principal amount could not be paid to her. Under such a situation the petitioner had to renew the fixed deposit receipts for a further period of one year. It is further alleged that after the expiry of the renewal period of the said fixed deposit receipts, the petitioner through the Bank of Baroda, New Delhi, desired the collection of the principal amount with interest thereon on 12th of February, 1977. The respondent No. 2 bank, however, refused to encash the fixed deposit receipts. It was under these circumstances that the petitioner had to file the aforesaid suit.

(3.) ON the contrary, it was contended by the petitioner that since the respondent No. 2 bank is a debtor and the petitioner is a creditor, the debtor has to seek the creditor and to make the payment at the place where she is now residing. The suit, according to the petitioner, is triable by the Simla court as at least a part of the cause of action has arisen in Simla. As pointed out earlier above, the trial court as also the lower appellate court have held that the Simla court has no jurisdiction. The petitioner has now preferred this revision petition.