MIZAJI LAL Vs. BABU RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appeal No. 199 of 1941 is an appeal by Babu Ram defendant and Appeal No. 41 of 1941 is by Mizaji Lal plaintiff against a decision of the Civil Judge of Mainpuri. Mizaji Lal, the plaintiff, alleged that he was the adopted son of Phulzari Lal and, therefore, entitled to various securities as forming part of the estate of Phulzari Lal. He had applied on 7 July 1933 to the Public Debt Office that securities in the name of Phulzari Lal be transferred to his name and interest be paid to him. The defendant Babu Lal had, however, on 5 October 1933, asked the Public Debt Office not to transfer those securities in the name of the plaintiff and according to the plaintiff it was because of this action of the defendant that the plaintiff was not allowed to draw the interest on those securities. The plaintiff alleged that there was another action of the defendant which prevented him from obtaining interest on certain securities which had not matured and the value of certain other securities which had matured and this was obtaining an injunction which the defendant had obtained when he filed an appeal against the order of the District Judge granting the plaintiff a succession, certificate about the estate of Phulzari Lal. Because of the two actions of the defendant, one in a Court and the other outside it, the plaintiff alleged that he was deprived of money which he would have invested at 12 per cent, with the result that he suffered a loss of more than its. 10,000. He accordingly asked for a decree for this amount.

(2.) The learned Civil Judge held that the Debt Office would not have transferred the securities to the name of the plaintiff or paid interest on them without a succession certificate and, therefore, the plaintiff was entitled to no damages for the action of the defendant taken outside the Courts. He, however, held that the defendant had no reasonable grounds for asking for an injunction as he had no title to the securities and he acted owing to enmity or ill-will or a desire to cause loss to the plaintiff Mizaji Lal when he applied for the injunction. On these findings the learned Civil Judge passed a decree for Rs. 2654-1-9 (interest at 6 per cent, and not 12 per cent.) with 4 per cent, interest pendente lite and 3 1/2 per cent, future interest.

(3.) Counsel for the defendant has urged that the plaintiff was not entitled to the decree which he obtained, while the plaintiff Mizaji Lal in his appeal alleged that he was entitled to Rs. 2500 more than he obtained because the damages should have been granted not from 26 February 1936, the date of the succession certificate, but from 5 October 1933, when Babu Lal wrote to the Debt Office not to pay anything to the plaintiff, because the damages ought to have been awarded till 15 April 1939 not only till 13 September 1938 and because the rate of interest should have been 12 per cent, per annum and not 5 per cent, per annum up to the date of the suit which has given rise to this appeal. As regards the appeal of the plaintiff Mizaji Lal, we may say at once that there is no evidence to show that the Debt Office because of any request of Babu Ram refused to pay anything to the plaintiff Mizaji Lal.