A JANNO HASSAN SAIT Vs. SNMAHAMAD OHUTHU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit upon a foreign judgment of the Colombo Court against the 1st defendant. The 1 defendant and his brother who were trading in partnership executed a power of attorney to one Sheikh Abdul Rahiman under which he was empowered to sue in the Courts of Ceylon and to appear before any Court or Courts of Justice either as plaintiff or defendant, etc. The power is a very wide one and gives the agent very full powers to represent the principals.

(2.) Under the provisions of the power Abdul Eahiman appointed one Abdul Guddus as his sub-agent during his absence from Ceylon. A suit was filed in 1915 on four promissory notes against Abdul Rahiman and Abdul Guddus but upon their pleading that they were merely agents of 1 defendant's firm another suit was brought against the 1 defendant. Notice of the suit was served on Abdul Guddus as 1 defendant's agent; and the judgment on which the present suit is based was passed in his absence.

(3.) The first question for consideration is whether the 1 defendant had submitted to the jurisdiction of the foreign Court, and on this point I must agree with the learned District Judge that he did so by executing the power of attorney in favour of Abdul Rahiman empowering the latter to conduct litigation in the Ceylon Courts, namely, in a place where the agent was conducting business for his principals, and it is clearly a contract binding him to appear in those Courts, and amounts to submission to the jurisdiction of these Courts. In this connection I would refer to the case reported in Ramanathan Chettiar V/s. Kalimuthu Pillai (1912) 37 Mad. 163.