RAM LAL Vs. BHOLA NATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs brought this suit in the Court of Small Causes at Kasganj to recover damages from the defendants, residents of Delhi, for an alleged breach of contract. The defense to the suit for the purposes of this application was that the Court at Kasganj had no jurisdiction to try it, as no part of the cause of action accrued in Kasganj. The Court held that it had no jurisdiction and ordered the plaint to be returned to the plaintiffs for presentation to the proper Court. The plaintiffs some here in revision.

(2.) The admitted facts relevant to this part of the case are as follows:The plaintiffs are shop-keepers at Kasganj and the defendants are merchants in Delhi dealing in dyes among other things. There had been previous dealings between the parties but these need not now be considered. On the 6th of November 1918, the plaintiffs wrote a letter, which is on the record from Kasganj, asking the defendants to send them four boxes of a particular dye. Nothing was said in the letter as to how the goods were to be sent. In the plaint, however, it is stated in paragraph 6, that the goods were to be sent by value payable parcel post, and there is no doubt that this was understood by both the parties. The goods were sent by value payable parcel post and the plaintiffs took delivery at Kasganj after paying their price plus commission and other charges. On opening the parcel, the plaintiffs alleged that the boxes contained clay and not the dyes they had ordered.

(3.) Having recited these fasts, the Court, instead of pausing to find what was the actual contract, discussed a number of rulings to discover what was the law. It is difficult to see how the Court could derive any help from a perusal of textbooks or reported decisions at that stage. It had first to decide what were the facts. The result has been that the Court has discussed many rulings which are quite irrelevant and has distinguished and refused to follow the only ruling which seems to us to be really in point. It has also relied on two other rulings, one of which refers to a suit of a totally different nature and both of which are inapplicable to what, in our opinion, are the facts of this case. Fortunately, we are able to find from the pleadings and the letter what the contract actually was, otherwise we should have had to send the case back for a finding, as we have had to do today in another somewhat similar case. Clearly, the defendants contracted to send four boxes of the dye ordered to Kasganj and the goods were to be delivered to the plaintiffs at Kasganj on payment by the plaintiffs of their price. On this finding we have no hesitation in holding that a part, at least, of the cause of action, assured at Kasganj. Section 20 of the Code of Civil Procedure, Clause (c), lays down that, "every suit shall be instituted in a Court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the cause of nation wholly or in part arises." In order to discover what was meant by the words "cause of action, wholly or in part arises" it is instructive to turn to Section 17 of the old Civil Procedure Code, Act XIV of 1882. In Explanation III to Section 17 it is enacted that: In suits arising out of contract, the cause of action arises within the meaning of this section at any of the following places, namely: (i) the place where the contrast was made; (ii) the place where the contract was to be performed or performance thereof completed; (iii) the place where in performance of the contract any money to which the suit relates was expressly or impliedly payable.