KORUPOLU SOMU NAIDU Vs. MAMMULURI SANYASAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I think it is clear that the plaintiff is not an endorsee of the note, because the only person who could endorse it is defendant 2, as holder, or some one, as for example the Court, on the holder's behalf. But the Court could only have acted, not on her behalf but on behalf of the judgment-debtor defendant 3. Therefore the Court's endorsement was not valid.

(2.) The question therefore resolves itself into this, whether a beneficial owner who is not the bolder or an endorsee from the bolder, can sue. There has been some difference of judicial opinion on this point, but so far as this case is concerned, I must be guided by the law as laid down by this Court. In Subbu Narayana Vaithiyar V/s. Ramaswami Aiyar (1907) 30 Mad. 88 a Bench of three learned Judges has answered the question without qualification in the negative. The view has been criticised as obiter, and hag been differed from in some other Courts : see Surajman Prasad V/s. Sadanand Misra A.I.R. 1932 Pat. 346; Brojolal Saha V/s. Budhnath Pyarilal & Co. and Shewa Ram V/s. Hoti Lal ; but so long as no dissent from it is expressed by a Bench of this Court it may properly be accepted as guidance by the Courts below. It may perhaps appear to some too that it is more in accordance with the principles of the Negotiable Instruments Act than the less strict view adopted in the decisions above cited. Accordingly, even were this a second appeal, I should be disposed to hold that the lower Court had not incorrectly applied the law. As it is a revision petition no proper ground whatever for interference can exist.

(3.) The Civil Revision Petition is dismissed with costs.