JAGGERNATH SINGH Vs. NARAYAN SAROGI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by the defendant arises out of a suit for recovery of Rs. 4096/-, principal and interest, which was decreed in full by the trial court and only in part by the lower appellate court.

(2.) According to the plaintiff's case, the defendant was the Munim of his firm and in that capacity an amount of Rs. 3411/- had been entrusted to him on the 19th February, 1953 for the purpose of making payment of Rs. 3200/ to a firm known as Chaman Lal Haridwari Lal at Banares and utilising the balance of Rs. 211/- for making certain purchases and meeting the expenses of travelling to and back from Benares. It was alleged that the defendant, instead of paying the sum of Rs. 3200/- to Chaman Lal Haridwari Lal and making the purchase etc., which he had been instructed to do, absconded with the money and never returned to the plaintiff, whereupon the plaintiff filed a criminal case which had ultimately ended in the acquittal of the defendant. On these allegations, the plaintiff instituted the suit for recovery of Rs. 3411/- as principal--the money which had been entrusted to him--and Rs. 685/- as interest from the 19th February, 1953, the date on which the aforesaid amount of Rs. 3411/- had been entrusted to the defendant to the 10th of February, 1956, at the rate of 9 per cent per annum.

(3.) The defendant contested the suit on the ground that the claim was false. He alleged that there were dues of the defendant's brother to the extent of Rs. 2128/- lying in deposit with the plaintiff's firm and that when the defendant demanded that money, there was trouble between him and the plaintiff, with the result that the defendant gave up the service of the plaintiff. According to him, the suit had been filed with a view to defraud him of the dues of his brother.