GREAT INDIAN PENINSULA RAILWAY Vs. RAMCHANDRA JAGANNATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On the 16th of September 1916, the plaintiff delivered to the defendants and the defendants accepted at the Victoria Terminus Station a parcel containing twenty-four account- books consigned to the plaintiffs firm at Nagpur for carriage from Victoria Terminus Station to Nagpur. The parcel arrived at Nagpur on the 18th September. On the 19th it was misdelivered to a chaprasi from the Nagpur jail who had come for another parcel which was of the same weight and bore a similar number upon it. The parcel, for which the jail chaprasi had come, had been dispatched from Khandwa, also on the 16th of September, in order that the papers contained in it might be destroyed in the Nagpur jail. The plaintiff s books after being delivered to the Jail chaprasi were taken to the Jail Superintendent and were then destroyed by mistake owing to his thinking that they were the papers consigned from Khandva. The plaintiff submits that the account-books have been lost to him by reason of the negligence of the defendants. In paragraph 6 of his plaint he says the account-books contained in the parcel contained the record of all the dealings and transactions of the plaintiff s firm with their various customers in respect of the agency business at Nagpur and were the only source from which the plaintiff could ascertain the debtors and creditors of his firm. The plaintiff says that he will be put to a heavy loss which the plaintiff estimates at a sum of Rs. 25,000 by reason of the loss and destruction of the said books and submits that he is entitled to recover the said sum of Rs. 25,000 from the defendants as damages suffered by him by reason of the defendants wrongful action. In a letter of claim, dated the 30th October 11316, the plaintiff s pleader states that the loss is roughly estimated at Rs. 21,000 together with interest due thereon at 12 per cent, per month from the due dates.

(2.) The suit came on for trial before Mr. Justice Kajiji by consent upon the preliminary issue whether the defendants are protected from liability to the plaintiff under Section 75 of the Indian Railways Act of 1890. That section provides that:-- (1) When any articles mentioned in the second schedule are contained in any parcel or package delivered to a railway administration for carriage by railway, and the value of such articles in the parcel or package exceeds one hundred rupees, the railway administration shall not be responsible for the loss, destruction or deterioration of the parcel or package unless the person sending or delivering the parcel or package to the administration caused its value and contents to be declared or declared them at the time of the delivery of the parcel or package for carriage by railway, and, if so required by the administration, paid or engaged to pay a percentage on the value so declared by way of compensation for increased risk.

(3.) The second schedule referred to in the section under item (i) mentions maps, writings and title-deeds.