PROBODH KUMAR DAS Vs. DANTMARA TEA CO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal relates, to a tea garden in the district of Chittagong, known as the Kaiyacherra Tea Estate, which at one time belonged to the Kaiyacherra Tea Co. Ltd. The estate was mortgaged to Messrs. Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co. of Calcutta who in 1930 obtained an order for the compulsory winding-up of the Tea Company. Thereafter the estate was put up to auction by the liquidators and purchased by Messrs. Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co. Without obtaining any conveyance in their favour Messrs. Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co. on 10 October 1931, by an interchange of letters of offer and acceptance agreed to sell the estate to one S. N. Roy, who paid the first instalment of the price and entered into possession. No conveyance was ever executed in pursuance of this contract of sale but the plaintiffs in the present suit, now the appellants, claim to have acquired at least in part the purchaser's rights under it. The estate has been the subject of a complicated series of transactions which it is fortunately not necessary to detail for the purpose of deciding the only question argued before their Lordships. These transactions are fully set out in the judgments of the Subordinate Judge and the High Court and account for the varied assortment of defendants to the suit.

(2.) The first defendants and respondents, the Dantmara Tea Co. Ltd., to whom alone it is necessary to refer, claim on the other hand to be the proprietors of the estate under (1) a duly registered deed of assignment in their favour by the partners of Messrs. Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co., dated 1 June 1934, which narrates inter alia the failure of S. N. Roy to complete the contract of sale of 10 October 1931, and (2) a duly registered deed of sale, also dated 1 June 1934, by the Kaiyacherra Tea Co. Ltd., and the liquidators of that company and by the partners of Messrs. Gillanders, Arbuthnot and Co. The position accordingly is that the plaintiffs have no title to the estate of which they are at least partly in possession, but rely on the contract of sale of 10 October 1931, while the defendants, the Dantmara Tea Co. Ltd., have a duly completed title to the estate but are not in possession of it. The real bone of contention between the parties is the right to the export quota under the India Tea Control Act (24 of 1933), which was passed inter alia to regulate the export of tea from India. By S. 3 of that Act an Indian Tea Licensing Committee was set up and under other provisions of the Act it was entrusted with the task of determining the total quantity of tea, termed the "export quota," which the owner of each tea estate should be permitted to export, and of issuing export licenses. These quota rights are assignable and are of obvious value. The Licensing Committee in 1933-34 issued the export quota rights for the Kaiyacherra estate to the plaintiffs or to them and S. N. Roy. In 1934-35 the Committee, having become aware that the title to the estate was in dispute, declined to issue any export quota rights in respect of it. Subsequent to the execution and registration of the conveyance of the estate to the defendants, the Dantmara Tea Co. Ltd., the Licensing Committee have recognized them as entitled to the export quota rights of the estate. Thus the plaintiffs have in part at least possession of the estate but have no export quota rights, while the defendants, the Dantmara Tea Co. Ltd., hold the export quota rights of the estate but have not possession of it.

(3.) It is in these circumstances that the plaintiffs brought the present suit in which they seek to have it, declared that the Dantmara Tea Co. Ltd., and others have no right or title to the estate and are debarred from enforcing any right to the estate, including the right to sell tea under the export quota allotted to it or to transfer the quota rights to any person. They also seek an injunction. The defendants challenged the right of the plaintiffs to bring the suit and maintained that they had no title to sue. The Subordinate Judge rejected this plea and decided generally in favour of the plaintiffs but on appeal the learned Judges of the High Court were of opinion that the suit was not maintainable and dismissed it.