NIDAMANURI SATYAMMA Vs. OFFICIAL RECEIVER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appeal is by the plaintiff. She sued for a declaration of her title to one- eighteenth share in a rice and oil-mill at Bezwada. Her case is that she contributed money towards the share, that the money was first credited in the name of defendant 2 and afterwards in the name of defendant 1. Defendant 3 is the husband of her sister and defendant 1 is his brother and she says, that as these two defendants are her relations her share was nominally standing in their names, but that on 26 April 1924 she got a release deed from them in respect of her share. Defendants 3 and 4 who are creditors of defendant 2 brought I.P. No. 2 of 1924 of the Sub-Court, Bezwada, to have defendants 1 and 2 adjudicated insolvents. In the end only defendant 2 was declared insolvent and it was held that the release deed, Ex. A was invalid and that defendant 2's estate vested in defendant 5 who is the Official Receiver, Kistna District. The District Munsif decreed the suit in favour of the plaintiff, but on the appeal by the Official Receiver the decree was reversed and the suit was dismissed. The matter is now only one between the plaintiff and the Official Receiver as the suit was given up at an early stage as against the creditors, defendants 3 and 4.

(2.) On the evidence I think it perfectly clear that the plaintiff did not entrust money either to defendant 1 or defendant 2, or to both of them, in order to the purchasing of a share in the mill. The evidence on the subject is discrepant and, such as it is, is not borne out by the accounts. The accounts clearly show that some money was deposited by the plaintiff with the defendants, but they do not show for what purpose it was deposited and the indications are that it was not deposited, as the plaintiff contends, for the definite purpose of buying a share in the mill. Ex. B, the rough day book of defendant 2, shows that on 9 November 1921 Rs. 331 were credited to the plaintiff as the proceeds of the sale of her jewels; and on the same day Rs. 400 are shown as having been spent "towards our share in the mill." The amount thus spent on the share is not noted as having been spent on behalf of the plaintiff while it is considerably more than the amount received on that date on the plaintiff's account. No further sum is shown as having been held for the plaintiff on that date. It is of course impossible to say that an amount of Rs. 400 could have been paid out of an amount of Rs. 331. Another payment of Rs. 200 for the share, which again is not shown in the accounts as having been paid by or for the plaintiff, was made on 3 September 1922. On 14 November 1921 according to the accounts, Ex. B, the plaintiff had been credited with Rs. 221-12-9 as the sale proceeds of another jewel but there is nothing to connect this credit with the debit over nine months later of Rs. 200 towards the purchase of the share which purchase is entered as being in the name of defendant. 1. A third credit to the plaintiff of Rs. 124 odd was made on 1 July 1922. This too can in no way be connected with the payment of Rs. 200. All then that the account can be relied upon to show is that a total amount of Rs. 676 odd was held to the plaintiff's credit but there is nothing in the accounts by which it is shown or from which it could be inferred that the money was deposited by the plaintiff in order to the buying of a share in the mill. Further the recital in the release deed, Ex. A, differs from what appears in the accounts. According to it the plaintiff gave to defendant 2 Rs. 400 on 10 November 1921 and Rs. 200 on 3rd September 1922 towards her share. These statements are incompatible with the entries in the accounts to which I have referred above.

(3.) It is the version given by defendant 2 as P.W. 2 that these amounts of Rs. 400 and Rs. 200 were received from the sale proceeds of jewels though from the judgment of the District Munsif he appears to have said that the credit was in his own name. Any way his evidence cannot be accepted as it does not square with the accounts. The plaintiff has said that she gave about Rs. 1,250 to defendant 2 for her share. This story is not supported by the accounts or by Ex. A which refers only to Rs. 600. She says that defendants 1 and 2 executed a promissory note in her favour but no such promissory note has been produced. The whole story then as to the purchase of this share on behalf of the plaintiff is not supported by any evidence to which credit can be given and therefore cannot be accepted. It is hardly necessary to refer to circumstances of suspicion in a case where evidence has failed but it cannot be overlooked that the plaintiff is closely connected with the defendants and that one of them has been adjudged an insolvent on a petition put in not long after the execution of Ex. A. It has also to be remembered that Ex. A was executed to the plaintiff not only by defendant 1 but also by defendant 2. The case for the plaintiff is that the share which the plaintiff claimed was first credited in the name of defendant 2 but that it was afterwards transferred to the name of defendant 1 owing to some rule of the factory. This must have been some time before the entry of the resolution dated 18 April 1923 in Ex. 1, the resolution book. But in spite of this transfer in the name of defendant 1 we find both defendants 1 and 2 executing the release deed, Ex. A. It is represented that defendant 2 was a party to this document as a matter of greater precaution; but still, if he had parted with his interest in the share, there should have been no need for him to have been a party to it and indeed there was no reason why this share should not have been in the name of the plaintiff all along.