MOHADEO PROSAD SAHU Vs. GAJADHAR PROSAD SAHU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge of Mozufferpur, dismissing a suit brought by a partner in a banking business for the recovery from the other partners of a considerable sum of money said to have been deposited in the bank in circumstances which may be thus described.

(2.) The plaintiff s father, Ganesh, and his uncles, Gajadhar (the father of the first defendant) and Baldeo (the father of second, third and fourth defendants) were members of a joint Hindu family, which owned, inter alia, an ancestral bank. Ganesh died in 1886, and it was thereafter, in 1893 apparently, agreed that each of the three branches of the joint family should be entitled to draw a monthly allowance from the bank of Sections 750 for personal expenses. The plaintiff s allowances were, however, not required, and it was arranged through his mother, he using a minor at the time, that they should be permitted to accumulate with interest in the bank. In the meantime, disputes in the management arose, and on the 5th April 1900 a suit was instituted on behalf of the plaintiff against Baldeo and Gajadhar for partition of the family property and for an account. This suit was compromised on the 17th April 1901, the consent-decree dividing the moveable and immoveable properties of the family, discharging Baldeo and Gajadhar from further liability to account, and directing the appointment of a manager for the realization of the assets and outstandings, and the winding up of the banking business.

(3.) On the 17th July 1904, the plaintiff brought another suit for the purpose of having the consent-decree of the 17th April 1901 set aside as inequitable and in fraud of his rights, for a fresh partition of the family property, and for a further account from Gajadhar and the sons of Baldeo, who had died in the interval. Most of the points in controversy were once more amicably settled when the case came before the High Court on appeal in 1908, and a decree was made as to the division of the property in accordance with the terms of the compromise then arrived at. But the parties had been unable to agree as to the liability of Gajadhar and the sons of Baldeo to account, and on this portion of the case, the High Court decided in favour of the plaintiff. It was accordingly further ordered by the decree that, as the accounts of the joint family business had not been duly investigated by the plaintiff s next friend and guardian ad litem in the suit of 1900, they should then be taken; and the case was remanded to the lower Court for that purpose and with the further direction that a Receiver should realise the outstandings of the banking business and divide the same, after satisfying the debts, if any, of the bank, between the "parties according to their respective shares." The consent-decree of 1901 was thus entirely set aside and superseded.