A K NAJOO KHAN Vs. ALI EBRAHIM NOOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the appellant, Ahmed Khan Najoo Khan, was the plaintiff in a suit in the Court of the Assistant Resident at Aden, and he sued two defendants, one who is now the effective respondent on this appeal, and the other his father, against whom no case has been made at all. The real issue lies between the appellant and the first defendant on the record.

(2.) Between these two parties an agreement of partnership was entered into in 1916. Their trade was to ship goods from Aden to places on the Somali coast, and with the proceeds of the sales to purchase local produce there and ship it back to Aden. The plaintiff carried on the business in Aden; the first defendant carried on the business at the places in Somaliland. The plaintiff found the money and the defendant presumably found the experience. The profits and losses were to be equally divided. Business went on between them until the end of the year 1917, after which the plaintiff in Aden shipped no further goods for disposal in Somali ports, but, apparently an the result of his opinion that the trade was a losing one, exercised his right under the articles of partnership to determine the partnership at will.

(3.) For this purpose he wrote a letter in March of 1917, which he sent by the hand of his confidential clerk and general business representative, Abdul Razak Fatoo. This man was further armed with a special power of attorney, set out in the documents in the record, of which it is enough to say that it did not authorise him to appoint an arbitrator on behalf of his employer or to submit disputes to arbitration in accordance with a clause in the articles of partnership, but that it did authorise him, in discussion with the first defendant, to settle the accounts of the partnership, to collect what money he could, and apparently, though this is immaterial for the moment, to sue for any balance which might be found due on the taking of an account,