DORABJI JAMSHEDJI TATA, Vs. EDWARD FLANCE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a notice of motion for an injunction and order in terms of prayers (c) and (e) of the plaint. Those prayers are: (c) that the first and second defendants (who represent the Western India Turf Club) may be restrained by an order and injunction of this Court from withdrawing ticket No. 15315 from the lottery, and (e) that pending the decision of this suit the first and second defendants may be restrained by an order and injunction of this Court from paying the amount of any price drawn by the ticket No. 15315 or any ticket substituted in place thereof to the third defendant.

(2.) Pat shortly the facts are these: The plaintiff purchased through the admitted agents of the defendant Club a ticket bearing the number 15315. Those agents were Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son of Bombay. They had the disposal of this ticket and they gave a receipt to the plaintiff for the Rs. 10 paid in respect of that particular ticket bearing that particular number. But it appears that at that moment the, book containing the ticket had not been sold down to that number and so Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son agreed actually to hand over the ticket itself when they got to the particular number in the book. Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son are not before me, but they seem by some mistake to have sent the ticket in question to another part of India where it was eventually issued and delivered by another branch of theirs to the third, defendant.

(3.) Correspondence took place between the plaintiff and Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son, and it appears from that correspondence or from other parts of the evidence that some offer was made by or on behalf of the plaintiff to the third defendant for this ticket. There was a counteroffer made by the third defendant which was refused: so there would appear to be some value attached to this particular ticket by the plaintiff and the third defendant over and above its face value. Then the plaintiff, being unable to obtain the ticket he thought he had bought, applied to the Turf Club and the decision the Turf Club came to was this. They decided to withdraw this ticket 15315 altogether, to return the plaintiff s money paid in respect of that ticket and to issue a new ticket 15315A to the third defendant. They wrote to the third defendant at the same time asking for his approval which I understand was subsequently given and telling him that if ticket No. 15315A was successful in the lottery the amount thereof would be paid to the third defendant. Thereupon the plaintiff brought this action. 2. I should say that the letter of the Club announcing what it had done was written on the 21st June and that this action was not brought till the 29th. But the explanation of that delay which might possibly have been serious is this that the plaintiff was in Kashmir at the time and that accounts for the delay of a week in taking action. Formal evidence as to this is to be put in by the plaintiff. 3. As regards the action itself, one can understand the plaintiff feeling that the Club had acted arbitrarily in deciding the dispute substantially in favour of one of the parties without giving either of them an opportunity of being heard and also in doing an act which the lottery conditions did not empower them to do, viz., to cancel a particular ticket, and that consequently, he had been rather harshly treated in the matter. Apart from this factor, I find it strange that parties should attach so much value to a particular ticket so as to come here with a law suit of this nature.