SADASHIV LAKSHMAN DEO Vs. RADHABAI VISHNU SATHE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a story about a buffalo. Many pages of judgment are before us. And even that does not exhaust the literature on the subject, because, prior to the two judgments before us, there were proceedings in the Mamlatdar's Court in which the buffalo is question was attached in execution of the Mamlatdar's decree. It appears, however, from a judgment in the case that the real dispute between the parties is not as to the buffalo, but arises over some faction dispute in connection with rival schools. Under those circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that the parties have succeeded in raising a large number of technical points, and that their ingenuity has resulted in the bringing of the present curious form of action for which no precise precedent has been cited to us. The buffalo is said to be worth Rs. 150. There is some reference as to the buffalo's milk and its calf, but the present judgment is confined to the buffalo.

(2.) In so far as one can consider this case at all seriously, the main point of law seems to be this. The Mamlatdar rightly or wrongly decided that the buffalo in question had been pledged by the judgment-debtor with the present applicant. Accordingly, the attachment was raised. The legal question, therefore, is, can the attaching creditor subsequently bring in the civil Courts an action for that against the person who put forward this successful claim to be a pledgee of the buffalo ? Apparently that point has not been considered in either of the lower Courts. I gather it was first suggested by my brother Baker when the case came up for admission.

(3.) Now this is a serious point of law and I may refer to what Lord Justice James says in Flower V/s. Lloyd (1878) 10 Ch. D. 327 (p. 383): Where is litigation to end if a judgment obtained in an action fought oat adversely between two litigants sui juris and at arm's length could be set aside by a fresh action on the ground that perjury had been committed in the first action, or that false answers had been given to interrogatories, or a misleading production of documents, or of a machine, or of a process had been given ? There are hundreds of actions tried every year in which the evidence is irreconcilably conflicting, and must be on one side or other wilfully and corruptly perjured. In this case, if the Plaintiffs bad sustained on this appeal the judgment in their favour, the present Defendants, in their turn, might bring a fresh action to set that judgment aside on the ground of perjury of the principal witness and subornation of perjury; and so the parties might go on alternately ad infinitum. Then the learned Judge proceeds (p. 334): The Court ought to pause long before it establishes a precedent which would or might make in numberless cases judgments supposed to be final only the commencement of a new aeries of actions. Perjuries, falsehoods, frauds, when detected, must be punished and punished severely; but, in their desire to DHABAI prevent parties litigant from obtaining any benefit from such foul means, the court must not forget the evils which may arise from opening such new sources of litigation, amongst such evils not the least being that it would be certain to multiply indefinitely the mas3 of those very perjuries, falsehoods, and frauds. It is only right to point out that though Lord Justice Thesiger agreed with the judgment of Lord Justice James, Lord Justice Baggallay reserved his opinion.