ROBINDRA DEB MANNA Vs. JOGENDRA DEB MANNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This suit was brought in 1915 on the 24th of March. It is an administration and partition suit between brothers as regards the family estate descending to them from their grandfather and under their father s Will. Jogendra, the first defendant, may be said to be the main defendant as his intromissions with the joint estate are apparently the main object of attack. Nogendra, defendant No. 2, appears to side with him: the other brothers support the plaintiff. A Receiver of the estate has been appointed by the Court at an early stage of the suit.

(2.) By order, dated 27th July 1917 and made on the plaintiff s application, the matters in difference in the suit were referred to two arbitrators under the second schedule to the Code. The order provided that the arbitrators should make their award in writing within six months from the date on which an office-copy of this order of reference be served on them or within such further time as they may allow themselves by endorsement on the said office-copy order. In case of difference of opinion between the arbitrators, they were to nominate an umpire who was to make his award within three months of the date of reference to him.

(3.) The joint remuneration of the arbitrators was agreed upon at Rs. 160 per sitting for the first ten sittings and thereafter Rs. 100 per sitting. Two clerks were appointed at Rs. 32 per sitting. The arbitrators appear to have held the sittings in the evening and for about two hours at a time. They began on the 20th December 1917 and on the 13th September 1919 they held the 122nd sitting. By this time they had not finished the plaintiff s case: indeed they had heard two witnesses only, viz., the plaintiff and one Jugal Kishore Pyne. The cross- examination of the third witness had only lasted for nine sittings and had not been completed. The manner in which the time has been expended can be found in the affidavits whose contradictions on detail leave the general result an undoubted scandal. The plaintiff was examined-in-chief for some 15 sittings and cross-examined for 33. Many sittings seem to have been expended in other ways than in taking evidence, e.g., 10 days on discussions as to amending pleadings. The arbitrators fees had amounted to about Rs. 16,700-0-0. The total law costs of the parties are put by the plaintiff at a further sum of Rs. 30,000. Robust optimism on the part of the main defendant puts it at Rs. 6,000 only. The plaintiff says he has six more witnesses to call (making nine in all) though the main defendant undertakes to deny this. In any case, four years after action brought, two years after the order of reference, 122 sittings having been held, the arbitrators in September 1919 were not yet in sight of the defendants case.