AUTO SUPPLY CO LTD Vs. VRAGHUNATHA CHETTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case turns on the construction of an agreement, dated the 12 of September, 1927, which is commonly called a hire purchase agreement. By that agreement the plaintiffs, the Auto Supply Co., Ltd., delivered a Morris motor bus of which they were the owners to the 1st defendant who hired it under the terms of the agreement. Those terms were these:

(2.) By Clause (3) the hirer was to pay by way of hire without demand a sum of Rs. 1,140 on delivery, and thereafter a sum of Rs. 226 on the 12 day of every month beginning with the month next after the date of the agreement until 11 monthly Instalments had been made unless in the interim he should have terminated the agreement.

(3.) Then by Clause (4) in the event of all the stipulated monthly hire being duly and punctually paid, the vehicle was at the hirer's option to become his absolute property, but he had a further option to buy the vehicle outright at any time during the currency of the agreement by paying all the hire due up to date. By Clause (2) the hirer was to pay the owners a sum of Re. I as consideration for the option to purchase given to him. It was also provided that the owners might terminate the contract of hiring and forthwith recover possession of the vehicle in certain events, one of which was that the hire for any given month was in arrear and left unpaid for seven clays after the date fixed for its payment [Clause (4) (a)]. That is the event which happened. No monthly instalments were paid for March, April, May and June, 1928, the total amount due to the owners in respect of those months being Rs. 914. On the 30 June, 1928, the plaintiff company terminated the hire and called for delivery of the bus to them with payment of the arrears then accrued. This was not done and the plaintiffs filed the present suit for possession of the bus, or, in lieu of that for Rs. 2,500, its estimated value at the time, for the arrears of hire, i.e., Rs. 904 and for damages for wrongful detention from the date of demand, i.e., 30 June, 1928.