ABDULLA SHARIFF Vs. MAHOMED ABA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit by a master to recover moneys entrusted to his servant and subsequently lost. The claim is based on an alleged agreement to re-fund the moneys and an entry in the plaintiffs books made by the defendant admitting his liability. The defence is that the moneys were stolen from the defendant and were lost Without any negligence on his part, that the above entry was made under coercion and undue influence and a threat of criminal proceedings, and that the defendant is under no liability to pay, and that the plaintiffs had abandoned their claim.

(2.) The case comes on as a contested short cause but was better fitted for the long cause list. Unfortunately, the defendant is not now represented by counsel, and accordingly 1 am without the assistance I should ordinarily get and which I should particularly welcome in the present ease; for it seems to me to be one of considerable difficulty. I am accordingly in very much the same unfortunate position as I was in the case of Kishenprasad V/s. Rajaram 27 Bom. L.R. 1159. Nor has the investigation by plaintiffs counsel of the law on the subject produced any authority on the exact point.

(3.) Shortly stated, the admitted facts are that the defendant was a cashier of the plaintiffs on Rs. 160 a month under an agreement for about eleven months expiring in September 1923. On April 18, 192, he was entrusted with eight currency notes of a thousand rupees each. He was there out to pay Rs. 2,500 at the Central Bank in discharge of a hundi, and was to pay Rs. 5,000 at the Imperial Bank. He came back to his masters with the discharged hundi for Rs. 2,500 and the sum of Rs. 500 in cash, but said he had lost the Rs. 5,000. His story at the trial was that he had all the money at the Central Bank, and that he had to go afterwards to Messrs. Bruel and Co. and missed the Rs. 5,000 when he got to the Imperial Bank.