HARI RAO Vs. VENKRMVRMSOMASUNDARAM CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against the preliminary decree in a suit for accounts instituted by a principal against the heirs of his agent. The only point for determination is a question of limitation. There has been some difference of opinion as to whether Art. 89, Limitation Act is to be applied only to suits for accounts instituted against the agent himself and not to suits instituted against his heirs; but as in the present case the application of Art. 89 to the suit is perhaps the most favourable from the defendants point of view and as we have come to the conclusion that even under Art. 89 the suit is not barred, it is unnecessary to deal with the divergence of authority as to the applicability of Art. 89 to the case.

(2.) The defendants father H. Seshagiri Row died on 14 August 1925 and this suit was instituted on 14 August 1928. It would therefore be in time unless the agency should be held to have terminated some time before the death of H.S. It has accordingly been contended, on behalf of the appellants, that by reason of certain events which happened in 1923 and 1924 in connexion with a suit, O.S. No. 24 of 1923 on the file of the Devakottah Sub-Court, the agency must be deemed to have terminated either in April or in September 1923 or at least in April 1924. Mr. Vinayaka Rao relied upon the statement of the rule in Art. 137 of Bowstead on Agency, as to the ways in which an agent's authority may be terminated. The statement here is in substance the same as that contained in Section 201, Contract Act read along with the provisions of Section 56, as to the circumstances in which a contract becomes unlawful. There is no suggestion in the present case that the business of the agency had been completed before the death of H.S. The alternatives relied on by Mr. Vinayaka Rao are : (1) that the business of the agency had become illegal by reason of an order of injunction passed in April 1923 in O.S. No. 24 of 1923 or by reason of the appointment of a receiver in the said suit in September 1923; (2) that the agent must be deemed to have renounced the business of the agency when he relinquished the receivership in that suit in April 1924, or (3) that the principal must be deemed to have revoked the agency because he himself took steps to conduct the defence in O.S. No. 24 of 1923. For a proper determination of the points thus raised, it is necessary at the outset to ascertain the exact scope of the agency.

(3.) The plaintiff is a member of a wall known Nattukkottai family bearing the Vilasam V.E.N.K.R.M. It became divided many years ago, but, even after the division some items of assets remained in common and arrangements had to be made for their due realization. Amongst the assets thus retained in common was the amount due to the family on a mortgage decree obtained in O.S. No. 58 of 1915 against the Ammainayakanur Zamindar. The defendants father had been a kind of law agent for the family even before its division. His duties were defined by a power of attorney executed by the various branches of the family in 1901, at a time when the present plaintiff was a minor. In 1917, after the plaintiff came of age, he executed the power of attorney filed as Ex. A in this suit, defining with greater particularity the scope of the agency and referring in fuller detail to the circumstances as they existed in 1917. We may add that another Nattukkottai family known by the Vilasam R.M.A.R. had long been claiming that they were entitled to a half share in the amount of the mortgage decree in O.S. No. 58 of 1915 and there had been disputes between the two families in that connexion. Ex. A accordingly refers not merely to what the agent was expected to do in connexion with the realization of the decree in O.S. No. 58 of 1915, but also provides that he should conduct all proceedings that might arise out of the disputes between the V.E.N.K.R.M. family and the E.M.A.R. group, in respect of the latter's claim to this decree.