KARSONDAS DHUNJIBHOY Vs. SURAJBHAN RAMRIJPAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decision of Mr. Justice Kania. The plaintiff's are suing the defendants as their agents in respect of moneys due on account of various transactions of cotton, wheat, linseed, etc., in Bombay, for about two years up to October 20, 1922, and they ask for an account of those dealings and payment of the amount due to them. In the alternative, they ask for payment of Rs. 2,865 odd on an admission which is alleged to have been made by the defendants. The defence is that the plaintiffs suit is barred by limitation; and that being so, it is necessary to state the relevant dates.

(2.) The first dealing between the parties took place on August 1, 1921. There was no general agency agreement, and I think that in law the defendants were appointed as agents for the plaintiffs in respect of each particular transaction committed to them. The last dealing between the parties took place on April 4, 1922, and, in my opinion, till about that date there was a mutual, open and current account between the parties. On July 10, 1922, the defendants wrote to the plaintiffs a letter sending them an account showing the amount due from the defendants to the plaintiffs as Rs. 2,123 odd, and they stated that they had settled that amount by a hawala entry in favour of another shop, in which they alleged the plaintiffs were partners. To that letter the plaintiffs replied on July 16, saying that they did not admit the accuracy of the account, and they also challenged the right of the defendants to settle the account by means of the hawala entry, and they stated that the money due must be paid to themselves. After some further correspondence, on July 28, the defendants wrote saying that they would send the moneys due, viz., Rs. 2,123 odd to the plaintiffs, and they further contended in the correspondence that the accounts were correct. On July 13, 1925, the plaintiffs commenced a suit in the Subordinate Judge's Court at Delhi claiming the moneys due from the defendants, and that suit finally terminated on May 3, 1928, by its dismissal for want of jurisdiction. Then, on July 25, 1928, the present suit was filed.

(3.) The plaintiffs case is that the moneys which they sue for are due on a mutual, open and current account within Art. 85 of the Indian Limitation Act, 1908, that the last item in that account was in April 1922, and that accordingly time runs from the end of the year according to the account. It is not in dispute that the end of the year according to the account was in October. So that the plaintiffs claim is that time began to run from October 1922. Then they say that credit must be given to them under Section 14 of the Indian Limitation Act, 1908, for the time spent in prosecuting the Delhi suit, and on that basis their suit is in time. The learned Judge accepted that view and gave judgment for the plaintiffs.