P.L. Buckland, J.

1. When this suit, which is undefended, was before me forhearing, I found that there was no affidavit forth-coming as to the fitness ofN.C. Dutt who has signed and verified the plaint on behalf of the company to doso. I accordingly asked the registrar to report as to what had been done inthis respect and reserved judgment lest the competency of the suit mightthereby be affected.

2. I am informed that the suit being by a corporation andthere being a statement in the plaint that, Mr. Narayan Chandra Dutt is thebanian and constituted attorney of the Calcutta branch of the plaintiff companyand, as such, a principal officer of the plaintiff company. He has power tosign the plaint and the warrant on behalf of the plaintiff company and he isable to depose to the facts of this case no affidavit has been required. This Iunderstand, is founded upon a judgment of Sale, J., in Sreenath Banerjee v.E.I. Ry. Co. [1894] 22 Cal. 268 in which the learned judge held that if aplaint or a written statement contains a statement to the effect that theperson purporting to verify is a principal officer of the company orcorporation and is able to depose to the facts of the case, the verification inthe usual form would probably be sufficient. This judgment lays down no rule assuggested and it has been misapplied. I shall give my reasons for thispresently; but first I propose to consider what the Civil Procedure Code andthe rules of the Court require as regards verification of the pleadings.

3. Order 6, Rule 15(1), Civil P.C., provides that everypleading shall be verified at the foot by the party or by one of the partiespleading or by some other person proved to the satisfaction of the Court to beacquainted with the facts of the case.

4. Chap. 7, Rule 12, Rules of this Court, provides asfollows:

Where any person, other than a party pleading, verifies apleading under Order 6, Rule 15 of the code, his fitness to so verify shall beproved by his affidavit at the time the pleading is presented.

5. With the observance of these rules in suits not by acorporation I have fully dealt in my judgment of the 19th May last in ManindraChandra Nandi v. Velji Mulji : AIR1927Cal773 , in which Icame to the conclusion that no exception could be made to the mandatoryprovision of the rule requiring an affidavit of fitness of the person verifyingto be presented with the pleadings. To this I would add that though, were itpermissible, it may appear at the initial stage a case is one for relaxation ofthe rule, any question consequential thereupon would only arise liter when thetime for enforcing the rule had long passed, which is an additional reason forsaying that no exception is permissible.

6. In the case of a corporation Order 29, Rule 1, CivilP.C., provides:

In suits by or against a corporation, any pleading may besigned and verified on behalf of the corporation by the secretary or by anydirector or other principal officer of the corporation who is able to depose tothe facts of the case.

7. This does not in my opinion, supersede the application ofthe rule already quoted, but is in amplification of them. But for such a ruleit might be difficult to determine who, in the case of a corporation, is theproper person to sign or verify a pleading on its behalf, and this rule isintended to meet that difficulty, but nothing more.

8. We then have to go back to the rules first quoted. Thesecretary, director, or other principal officer is not the party pleading. Theparty pleading is the company. Hence it follows that as regards every pleadingon behalf of a company or corporation the fitness to verify of the personpurporting to verify it must be proved by affidavit.

9. This is entirely in accordance with the view taken bySale, J., in the case cited. In that case there was nothing in the writtenstatement to the effect stated above. The learned judge observed:

The description in the verification of Richard Gardiner, asagent of the defendant company, is itself not verified, nor, if thatdescription alone were verified, could it be assumed that he was a principal officerof the defendant company and able to depose to the facts of the case. Thatevidence in the case of these written statements must therefore be supplied byaffidavit, and on that being done, the written statements may be presented tothe registrar for admission.

10. As regards cases where a statement as to the fitness ofthe person verifying is to be proved in the plaint no distinction can be madebetween suits to which a corporation is a party and others. With this point Ihave already dealt. The judgment of Sale, J., does not touch the question of aplaint. If carefully studied it will be found to be based upon waiver by theplaintiff where there has not been strict observance of the rules in theverification of the written statement. This is another matter altogether andnot one on which an erroneous practice should have grown up. Waiver can onlyarise in particular instances and each case in which it is said to arise mustbe considered independently.

11. The matter of the signature of the plaint depends uponanother rule of which the wording is slightly different. I have stated thelimited effect of Order 29, Rule 1 which makes no distinction between signingand verifying a pleading on behalf of a corporation. The rule requiringpleadings to be signed is Rule 14, Order 6, Civil Procedure Code, whichprovides as follows:

Every pleading shall be signed by the party and his pleader(if any) : Provided that where a party pleading is by reason of absence or forother good cause, unable to sign the pleading it may be signed by any personduly authorized by him to sign the same or to sue on his behalf.

12. To all pleadings on behalf of corporations the provisoapplies, for the same reason that as regards the verification proof is requiredof the fitness of the person verifying. Consequently to the extent and in themanner that it is necessary as regards a pleading filed on behalf of a personother than a corporation to establish that the person signing it is dulyauthorized to do so, it is necessary in the case of a pleading filed on behalfbf a corporation to establish that the person signing it is duly authorized todo so. As to this the practice is well established and there is no geed furtherto refer to it.

13. Subject to the necessary affidavit being filed, therewill be judgment for the amount claimed with costs on scale No. 1 and intereston decree at six per cent.

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International Continental Caoutchoue Compagnie vs. Mehta and Co. (27.07.1927 - CALHC)