GOVERNOR-GENERAL IN COUNCIL Vs. JOYNARAIN RITOLIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Section 25, Small Cause Courts Act by the Governor-General in Council representing the East Indian Railway Administration and the G.I.P. Railway Administration as defendant in a suit in the Court of the Small Cause Court Judge at Dhanbad for recovery of Rs. 406 in respect of the loss of 14 tins of vegetable ghee out of a consignment of 1200 tins.

(2.) The consignment of 1200 tins was booked at Sion station on the G.I.P. Railway to Dhanbad on the East Indian Railway by the Vegetable Vitamin Food Co. Limited. The consignment was made to self, and Risk Notes A and B were executed. The consignor endorsed the railway receipt in blank on the back, and transferred it to Messrs, Mohammad Ibrahim Mohammad Zaffar & Company. The plaintiff, whose joint family trades under the name of Sheosamal Mansaram, purchased the railway receipt and the goods from Mohammad Ibrahim Mohammad Zaffar, who in their turn endorsed the railway receipt in blank and made it over to the plaintiff. The plaintiff then took delivery through his servent, and 14 tins were found short.

(3.) Two points were taken in defence before the learned Judge, and have also been taken before me. First, it is said that the plaintiff being neither the consignor nor the consignee, nor an endorsee of the railway receipt, has no right to sue. Reliance is placed on a decision of Beevor J. in Sri Ram Krishna Mills Ltd. v. Governor-General in Council A.I.R. 1945 Pat. 387 wherein it was held that where goods have been delivered to the railway company for consignment, it is only the consignee or the persons to whom the railway receipt has been endorsed who can sue for non-delivery of the goods. Reliance is further placed on an unreported decision of Agarwala A.C.J. (civil Revision No. 141 of 1946) decided on 2nd April 1947, in which it was held that the plaintiff had no right to sue, because the consignment had been made to self and although the plaintiff was (in possession?) of the railway receipt it bore no endorsement in his favour.