JANKI PRASAD SINGH Vs. BALDEO PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WE think that the decision of the Courts below is correct. The plaintiff appellant has been able to establish no such relationship existing between him and the defendants as would justify the payment of the money which he now seeks to recover. It has been found by the Courts below that the assignment made to him of the mortgagee rights of the defendants was fictitious and collusive, and consequently the judgment creditors of the assignors had a right to sell those mortgagee rights in execution of their decree. WE do not think that Section 69 or Section 70 of the Contract Act helps the appellants. As regards Section 69, a party who makes a payment on behalf of another, before he can recover the amount so paid, must show that he had an interest in making the payment. Their Lordships of the Privy Council in dealing with the rights of parties making payments observed, in the case of Ram Tuhul Singh V/s. Biseswar Lall Sahoo (1875) L.R. 2 I.A. 131: "It is not in every case in which a man has benefited by the money of another that an obligation to repay that money arises. The question is not to be determined by nice considerations of what may be fair and proper according to the highest morality. To support such a suit there must be an obligation express or implied to repay. It is well settled that there is no such obligation in the case of a voluntary payment by A of B's debt." Now in this case, in view of the facts which have been found by the Courts below, we cannot discover that there was any obligation, either express or implied on the part of the appellant to pay the debt of the respondents. The case therefore does not fall within the purview of Section 69 of the Contract Act. Nor does it fall within Section 70. In the case of Chedi Lal v. Bhagwan Das (1888) I.L.R. 11 All. 234, it was held by a Bench of this Court that by the use of the word "lawfully" in Section 70 of the Contract Act, the Legislature had in contemplation cases in which a person held such a relation to another as either directly to create, or such as would justify, the inference that by some act done for another person, the person doing the act was entitled to look for compensation to the person for whom it was done. In his judgment Straight, J., observed: "If the plaintiffs as mere volunteers chose to put their hands into their pockets and to pay a sum of money, not for the defendants but for themselves, that was their own look-out, and they cannot now claim the benefit of Section 70." WE think upon the facts, therefore, that the payment made by the appellant was a purely voluntary payment, and possibly was made, as is suggested by the Courts below, with some sinister object. WE dismiss the appeal with costs.