ATTAR HUSSEIN Vs. FAZLI BROTHERS, LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff is a distributor of cinema films. The defendants are producers and distributors of cinema films, this being one of the objects for which they have been incorporated. The plaintiff entered into an agreement with the defendants for the purchase from the defendants of the distribution rights of their social pictures "Fashion", "Bhai Behen" and "College" for certain territories therein mentioned for a period of six years. The suit is filed by the plaintiff to recover damages from the defendants for a breach of this agreement.

(2.) The plaintiff has taken out this summons for a transfer of this suit to the list of commercial causes. This summons is contested by the defendants who have contended before me that the cause of action in this suit does not arise out of the ordinary transactions of merchants and traders and that therefore this suit should not be transferred to the list of commercial causes.

(3.) Counsel for the plaintiff has urged that the business which the plaintiff as well as the defendants are carrying on comes within the wide definition of " trade" to be found in Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. XXXII, p. 303, and In re Duty on Estate of Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales (1888) 22 Q.B.D. 279. He also drew my attention to a statement to be found in Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. XXXII, p. 303, in the notes, where the word " trade " is in some cases also taken to include manufacture. Arguing on this, he has contended that the plaintiff and the defendants being traders, the transaction which was entered into between them and which is the subject-matter of this suit is an ordinary transaction between traders and therefore within the definition of a " commercial cause " in Rule 199 of the High Court Rules. The defendants being producers as well as distributors in the course of their business as distributors would also enter into transactions by way of selling their distribution rights for particular territories and for particular periods with persons like the plaintiff and the transaction in suit is thus an ordinary transaction which would be entered into by them as the distributors and thus the cause of action in the suit would be one arising out of the ordinary transactions between traders.