HALAYUDH Vs. TEK CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are two appeals by the defendant's arising out of a suit of the plaintiffs respondents for recovery of Rs. 3,000/ as compensation for breach of a contract.

(2.) THE plaintiffs had taken from the Government a contract for floating sleepers of wood down certain streams, and part of that work was entrusted by them to the defendants under a contract dated 17 Har 2004 B. In order to understand the terms of the contract it is necessary to be clear with regard to the topography of the scene of the defendants' work. The plaintiffs had depots at the upper reaches of four nullahs. The defendants had to launch sleepers at these depots into the four nullahs and float them down the streams until they met at a point known as Khanagi. Thereafter the sleepers were to be floated through a single and a deeper channel, known as Killan Khud two or two and a half miles in length, before this channel joined the main channel called Bakhal Khud at a point known as Killan. After floating the sleepers from the Killan Khud into the Bakhal Khud the defendants had so to arrange the sleepers in the latter Khud that the same should float down the Bakhal Khud in a proper manner. The defendants' work, however finished after they had so arranged the sleepers in the Bakhal Khud. They had nothing to do with the further floating of the sleepers down the Bakhal Khud.

(3.) THE defendants pleaded that their coolies continued to work upto the very end, that it was the plaintiffs who broke the contract in that they refused to pay Rs. 2,000/ to the defendants according to the terms of the contract when the defendants collected the sleepers after floating them down the nullahs, and that thereafter when only little work remained to be done the plaintiffs introduced their surplus labour without informing the defendants. The defendants denied their liability for any compensation to the plaintiffs and contended that the plaintiffs themselves were liable to pay them about Rs. 7,000/ .