LAWS(PVC)-1920-7-29

SOUTH INDIAN RAILWAY COMPANY, LIMITED, BY ITS AGENT Vs. MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, TRICHINOPOLY REPRESENTED BY ITS CHAIRMAN

Decided On July 28, 1920
SOUTH INDIAN RAILWAY COMPANY, LIMITED, BY ITS AGENT Appellant
V/S
MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, TRICHINOPOLY REPRESENTED BY ITS CHAIRMAN Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff, the South Indian Railway Company, Limited, is the appellant before us. The suit was brought for recovery of the total of the sums paid by the Railway Company to the Municipal Council of Trichinopoly between March 1912 and November 1914 for what are sailed private scavenging services performed by the Municipality for the Railway Company. I find that they are called scavenging fees in the relevant notices, reports and bills (See for example Exhibit J).

(2.) The Railway Company own stations and offices at the Junction and Fort of Trichinopoly. There are several latrines and urinals in these places, and the washings and the night soil are collected by the Railway authorities through the Railway coolies into certain receptacles and a repository and into cisterns, the urinals being drained into cisterns. The Municipality owns carts and bulls and employs drivers to drive the carts to the Municipal night-soil-depot, which is situated at a distance of 5 1/2 or 6 miles from the junction station. The so-called scavenging fees recovered from the Company seem to be the hire charged for the supply of the night-coil cart and urinal carts with bulls and drivers. Three night-soil carts and four urinal carts seem to have been usually supplied in the year 1913 and the hire charged for three night-soil carts is Rs. 55 a month and for the four urinal carts Rs. 62 a month, (See Exhibit A-2). (The requirements in previous and subsequent years have, of course, varied from what they were in 1913) The 2nd paragraph of Exhibit A-2 says: "The nature of the service rendered is carting away the night soil and urine collected by Railway scavengers and kept in readiness in receptacles for removal." After going through the records carefully, I am satisfied that the claim of the Municipality relates to the cost of transport to the Municipal depot from just outside the Railway premises and that the removal of the night- soil and urine in the receptacles and cisterns from within the Railway compounds to just outside the compounds were treated as a negligible preliminary to the main work of transport to the depot. It may be that the hired carts proceed some distance into the Railway premises to receive the offensive matter and then go out to the Municipal road outside the premises and are then driven off to the Municipal depot at a distance of six miles, but the transport from inside the Railway premises to just outside those premises, assuming that it is done in the Municipal carts, does not seem to have been considered as a separate service chargeable by itself, any more than a cart driven charges for removing things from the verandah of a bungalow to the gate separately from the charge of conveyance to the Railway station. It is the employment of the carts, bulls and drivers in transporting the stuff to a distance of six miles which is the service which has been charged for and objected to in this case.

(3.) The plaintiff (Railway Company) contends in paragraph 6 of the plaint "that the provisions of the District Municipalities Act do not entitle the Municipal Council to charge fees for the transport of night soil etc., to their rubbish depot; and also that, in levying the fees in dispute from the Railway Company, the Municipality has not complied in substance and effect with any of the provisions of the District Municipalities Act. The Council in their written statement contended, among other defenses which are unsustainable and which, therefore, need not be further noticed, (a) "The services rendered are such that the defendant Council is not in any view of the law bound to do the same free of charge. These services have been rendered throughout by special agreement between the parties and the defendant Council and avers that it would not have rendered them but for such agreement, (b) From the year 1889 the defendant Council has been doing the work of removal in and from the premises of the plaintiff Company under special agreements between the parties by which the plaintiff requested such specific services to be done in the manner and to the extent required by the plaintiff Company to suit their own convenience and by which they agreed to pay the defendant Council specified sums per mensem, (c). The defendant Council submits that, the above said agreements are legal and binding on the parties and are further in substantial compliance with the provisions of the District Municipalities Act. (d) The suit is barred by limitation.