BANWARI LAL Vs. SHUKRULLAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decision of Wort, J., in Miscellaneous Judicial Case No. 144 of 1931 which arose from somewhat unusual circumstances. The plaintiffs sued the defendants for dissolution of partnership. The partnership was formed for the purpose of carrying on a sugar factory. They also joined with their claim for dissolution of partnership a claim for damages for breach of the fundamental terms of the contract of partnership, the fundamental term of which it was said there was a breach being to carry on the factory concerned in a particular way. The merits of that case we are not concerned with.

(2.) The learned Subordinate Judge before whom the suit was tried passed a partnership decree decreeing partnership accounts and dissolution of the partnership and also decreed damages against the defendants for the tort or breach of contract, as the matter may be considered, alleged by the plaintiffs. He then proceeded to take evidence concerning the damages which the plaintiffs had suffered and he inquired into the allegation of damages as suffered up to the date of the suit and drew up his accounts upon that basis and for the period up to the date of the suit in so far as the question of damages was concerned. A little later the plaintiffs applied to the Subordinate Judge for a further decree against the defendants in the matter of damages or it may be that they asked for the continuation of the account as to damages from the date of the suit up to the date of the dissolution of partnership. I do not propose to offer any opinion as to which was the proper way to look at that claim. The Subordinate Judge proceeded however to deal with the damages alleged to have been suffered by the plaintiffs from the date of the suit continuing for a further period of about a year so as to carry the account of the damages up to the date of the dissolution of the partnership and he came to the conclusion that the plaintiffs in respect of that further period had suffered damages to the extent of Rs. 42,000 odd.

(3.) The defendants objected to this course and they said that the learned Subordinate Judge having originally given a decree for damages was now functus officio and as they said had no power to carry the order further and make what they said was a supplementary decree or further damages incurred beyond the date of the suit. The Subordinate Judge heard the objection and decided against the contention of the defendants who thereupon came to the High Court in revision and the learned Judge of this Court dismissed that application summarily.