A M ROSS, DULY AUTHORISED AGENT OF CERTAIN TEA COMPANIES AND LABOUR ASSOCIATIONS Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Plaintiff is the appellant. So far as this suit, which is brought to recover damages against the Secretary of State for India in Council, is based upon the suspension and dismissal of Rama Sastry (a "local agent" of the Assam Planters) by the Collector and District Magistrate of Ganjam, the plaintiff gave up his contention that such suspension and dismissal were wrongful.

(2.) The remaining facts on which the claim is founded are (a) that the Collector and District Magistrate on the 22nd February 1910 closed a labour-recruiting depot at Berhampore, that recruiting depot having been intended -for the accommodation of coolies recruited on behalf of certain Tea Planting Associations in Assam, of which Associations the plaintiff had been appointed as agent; (b) that the Governor-in-Council by a Government Order, dated 12th October 1910, ratified and confirmed the Collector s order closing the depot till that date; (c) that the Government on the said 12th October 1910 in the said order made the defamatory remark that the conduct of Mr. Rosa (the plaintiff) was not wholly above suspicion" in the matter of the irregularities committed by the local agent, T.S. Rama Sastri, on account of which irregularities Rama Sastri s license as local agent was cancelled by the Collector and District Magistrate.

(3.) The learned Chief Justice who tried this case on the original side, dismissed the suit making certain observations in his judgment, which observations might be stated as follows, using in great part the words of the learned Chief Justice: 1. The Collector s Order of February 1910, closing the depot to recruiting by the garden sardars working under the Assam Labour and Emigration Act, VI of 1901, on behalf of the Assam Planting Associations was ultra vires. 2. The Secretary of State in Council is not legally liable for the tortious acts of the Collector of Ganjam or of the Governor of Madras in Council. If Section 416 of the old Civil Procedure Code really laid down that the Secretary of State can be made liable for the tortious acts of a local Government or of an officer of that Government notwithstanding that the East India Company would not have been liable for such acts, that section is ultra vires of the Indian Legislature, as opposed the provisions of the Indian Councils Act of 1861. If the decision in Vijaya Ragava v. Secretary of State for India 7 M. 466 holds otherwise, it is no longer an authority as opposed to the Privy Council decision in Secretary of State for India v. Moment 18 Ind. Cas. 22 : C. 391 ( P.C.) : 24 M.L.J. 459 : 13 M.L.T. 53 : 14 C.W.N. 169 : (1913) M.W.N. 45 : 15 Bom. L.R. 27 : 11 A.L.J. 49 : 7 C.L.J. 194 : 6 Bur. L.T. 1 : 7 L.B.R. 10 : 40 I.A. 48. See also Shivabhajan v. Secretary of State for India 28 B 314 : 6 Bom. L.R. 65. In Dhackjee Dadaji v. East India Co. 2 Morley s Digest 307 : Perry O.C. 344 : 4 Ind. Dec. (o.s.) 587 Sir Erskine Perry held that the only ratification which would bind the Company was a ratification by the Court of Proprietors itself. This is not a case in which a petition of right would lie against the Crown. Hence this action against the Secretary of State, who is not alleged to have himself ratified the Collector s acts or the local Government s acts, cannot lie. 3. In Tobin v. Reg. (1864) C.B. (N.S.) 310 : 33 L.J.C.P. 199 at p. 210 : 10 Jur. (N.S.) 1029 : 10 L.T. 762 : 12 W.R. 838 : 139 R.R. 504 : 143 E.R. 1148 it was held that, independently of the doctrine that the King can do no wrong, the Crown could not be made liable for the action of a Government servant purporting to act under statutory power conferred upon him, because the action of a Government servant purporting to exercise a statutory power cannot be held to be an act done as an agent of the Crown. See Shivabhajan v. Secretary of State for India 28 B. 314 : 6 Bom. L.R. 65. There can be no ratification by the principal of such an act, as such an act was not done on behalf of the principal.