GULAM ABBAS Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AS a result of the re-trial ordered in my judgment dated the 30th September 1925, in Civil Revision No. 71 of 1925 the Judge of the Small Cause Court has dismissed the plaintiff's suit and he has now come up here on revision. The findings of the Small Cause Court Judge are that articles specified in Schedule 2 Railways Act and, therefore, requiring a special declaration under Section 75 were included in the consignment in question. As the plaintiff had, how-over, failed to prove what specific articles were included in each parcel and, even supposing that the articles liable to be declared had been included in one package, as plaintiff averred, the Judge of the Small Cause Court held that it was impossible to. settle the value of the articles contained in the second package, even if these articles did not comprise any of the special ones liable to be declared under Section 75, Railways Act.

(2.) IT has been suggested before me on behalf of the applicant that the burden of proof as to what articles were contained in each specific parcel, rested on the railway company. It is hardly necessary to take this contention seriously. On the face of it, the contents of each parcel should have been a special matter of knowledge to the consignee and it was for him, through his consignor, to prove this. Abbas Ali (P. W. 1), the munim of the firm in Bombay, who despatched the consignment, explicitly stated that he was unable to be precise as to the articles included in each package, and in those circumstances it was for the plaintiff to show that the special articles were divided between the two packages to an extent which would mean that the value of such special articles in each package was less than Rs. 100. This, however, has not been proved and indeed plaintiff's position, vide para. 5 of his written statement, dated 12th September 1924 gives no go by to any such assumption.

(3.) I am wholly unable to accept the contention urged on behalf of the non-applicant that the word " parcel " or " package " in Section 75, Indian Railways Act, must, under Section 13 (2), General Clauses Act 1897, be taken to include the plural, as well. Such an argument overlooks the words " unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context," contained in the provision in question. If the intention of the legislature had been as suggested by the non-applicant, the word "consignment" would undoubtedly have appeared in Section 75 of the Act. The plaintiff's case is, therefore, a somewhat hard one, because assuming that the special articles were all included in the one parcel or package, he would have been entitled to compensation as regards the contents of the other; but, in the circumstances of the case, I do not see how it is possible to give him any relief. He has had abundant opportunity to prove his case but has failed to do so by any satisfactory and detailed evidence.