RATNAKALLI GURANNA SAHEB Vs. VACHALAPU APPALA NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Civil R. P. in a small cause case. Plaintiff is the petitioner. His suit in the Court below was dismissed as the lower Court held that under Section 30, Contract Act, the plaintiff was not entitled to recover the amount, I am glad to have been able to come to the conclusion that there is no reason in this case to interfere with the decision of the lower Court. The facts are these. The plaintiff and another person entered into what was admittedly a wagering contract with regard to cock fighting. It was agreed that both of them should pay into the hands of the stake-holder ( defendant ) a sum of Rs. 60 on the condition that the total sum of Rs. 120 should be paid over by the stake-holder to the person whose cock should win in the fight. The plaintiff's case is that the fight or match ended in a draw. On that basis he has instituted this suit for the recovery of the sum of Rs. 60 paid by him into the hands of the stake-holder. The defendant pleaded that he had already paid off to the other party to the contract the whole amount because it is not true that the match or fight ended in a draw, but because in the match or fight the cook of the other party had really won. This question of fact, however, has not been tried by the Court. The lower Court has dismissed the plaintiff's action on the ground that the claim is unsustainable under the provisions of Section 30, Contract Act.

(2.) M. Y. Suryanarayana, the learned vakil for the petitioner, has argued the case citing a number of English decisions. Before I proceed to the consideration of the English decisions I must say that to my mind Section 30, Contract Act, in terms clearly applies to the present case. In the first clause of the section it is provided as follows: Agreements by way of wager are void; and no suit shall be brought for recovering anything alleged to be won on any wager, or entrusted to any person to abide the result of any game or other uncertain event on which any wager is made.

(3.) Taking those words I find it extremely difficult to see why an amount paid by a party to a wagering contract into the hands of a stake-holder should not be regarded as money entrusted to any person to abide the result of any game or other uncertain event on which any wager is made If the matter were res integra and if I had not felt bound by the mass of judicial opinion in England which had been brought to bear upon the proper construction of the section of the English Gaming Act, in terms almost identical with the present section, I should have had no hesitation whatever in deciding the case offhand against the plaintiff. But the learned vakil for the petitioner has referred to various English cases where the learned Judges have stated what they Considered to be the true construction of Section 18, Gaming Act, 8 and 9, Vic. Ch. 109.