BAIJ NATH Vs. MANSUKRAJ PANNA LALL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment; of my learned brother Mr. Justice Greaves. The plaintiff and the defendants entered into three contracts (the dates of which I need not mention), which purported to be in respect of the purchase of a considerable number of yards of Hessian cloth. These contracts, were followed by what have been called settlement contracts, one dated the 14th of May 1917 and another dated the 23rd of May 1917, and a dispute arose between the parties whereby the defendants were claiming from the plaintiff the sum of Rs. 41,655, and in respect of that they claimed to go to arbitration under the arbitration clause which is contained in the contracts. They communicated with the Chamber, we are informed, on the 6th of September, bat it was not until the 1st of December that the Registrar of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce gave notice to the plaintiff of the defendants claim to go to arbitration and this suit was brought on the 19th of December 1917.

(2.) The suit was brought claiming a declaration that the three contracts in question were illegal, inoperative, and unenforaeable against the plaintiff; secondly, that the defendant firm should be ordered to deliver up the said contracts, including the settlement contracts, for cancellation and that the same might be adjudged void and be cancelled, and, thirdly, that an injunction might be granted restraining the defendant firm, its servants and agents from enforcing or attempting to enforce the said contracts or any of them or any alleged rights thereunder and in particular from proceeding or attempting to proceed with the arbitration before the Tribunal of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce.

(3.) A Rule was granted, as we are informed, by my learned brother Mr. Justice Greaves calling upon the defendants (I have not the terms of the Rule before me but 1 assume them to be to this effect) to show cause why the arbitration proceedings - should not be stayed. On the hearing of that Rule, the learned Judge dismissed it: and it is from that judgment that this appeal has been laid.