GOVIND DHONDSHET KOLWANKAR Vs. CHIPLUN MUNICIPALITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the decision of the District Judge of Ratnagiri. The plaintiffs are the Chiplun Municipality, and the defendants are certain gentlemen who were members of the managing committee of the Chiplun Municipality for the years 1922-23 and 1928-24,

(2.) The facts giving rise to the litigation are stated at considerable length in the judgments of the lower Courts, but I think the facts material to this appeal can be stated very shortly. In the years 1922-23 the Chiplun Municipality was minded to acquire some dustbins, and they entered into a contract for the supply of these dustbins with a gentleman named Tankale, The dustbins were supplied and delivery of them was taken by the Municipality, and Tankale was paid the contract price. The claim of the Municipality against the defendants is that they were the managing committee who entered into this contract, that the dustbins were not in accordance with the contract, and that the managing committee ought not to have paid for them. The claim in the suit originally was for the money paid to Tankale for the dustbins, being a sum of Rs. 681-8-6, but the learned trial Judge, holding that the Municipality could not keep the dustbins and also have the money paid for them reduced the claim and allowed to the Municipality the difference between what he held to be the true value of the dustbins and the amount which the Municipality had paid for them, that difference being a sum of Rs. 116- 4-0. The lower appellate Court confirmed the decree with the modification that the amount for which the defendants were liable was Kb. 177-8-0.

(3.) Various technical defences were raised, and in order to deal with them it is necessary to look at the Bombay District Municipal Act, Bombay Act III of 1901, and the rules made thereunder. Under Section 9 of that Act the Municipality is a corporation with perpetual succession and with the right to sue in its corporate name. By Section 27 the managing committee is constituted with power in effect to carry out the duties of the Municipality. By Section 37 the Municipality has power to delegate its powers. By Section 40 it is given power to contract, by Section 46, power to make rules, and by Section 50 all the property of the Municipality vests in the Municipality. There are two other sections which are material, viz., Secs.42 and 167, to which I will refer more in detail, because it is on those sections that the judgments of the lower Courts were based and on which the judgment of this Court must depend.