BANK OF BOMBAY Vs. NANDLAL THAKERSEYDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from an order and decree of the High Court of Bombay in its appellate jurisdiction reversing the order and decree of Beaman J., who tried the case originally. The Trial Judge dismissed the suit with-" out costs as against the first defendants, the Bank of Bombay, who are the present appellants. The Court of appeal, consisting of Scott C. J. and Batchelor J., made a decree in favour of the plaintiff, with costs.

(2.) The plaintiff, a merchant in Bombay, by his plaint which was filed so far back as November 1904, claimed delivery of 399 bales of cotton which had been entrusted to the second defendant Lakhmidas as muccadum or warehouseman and, as the plaintiff alleged, improperly pledged by him to the Bank. In the alternative the plaintiff claimed payment of the value of the bales in question, and in the event of it being held that he was not entitled to any such relief as aforesaid then he asked that his right should be ascertained and declared suggesting that the securities deposited by Lakhmidas with the Bank should be marshalled in his favour.

(3.) The case was not brought to a hearing until January 1909. For this dalay both parties seem to have been equally to blame. Various irrelevant issues were raised and various irrelevant defence s were set up, and there were interlocutory applications protiacted and all apparently futile. Both parties seem to have" been in the dark as to the real facts of the case which were not elucidated until the suit was at hearing, though apparently the plaintiff might have discovered the facts from Lakhmidas books which were accessible to him, and the Bank ought to have been able to produce an accurate record of their dealings with their customers.