S.m. Venkatarama Aiyar v. Raja Gopala Iyer And Others

S.m. Venkatarama Aiyar v. Raja Gopala Iyer And Others

(High Court Of Judicature At Madras)

| 16-09-1915

1. The learned District Judge professed to decide this case after consideration of the terms of the partition-deed. No such deed is even alleged ever to have existed. The plaint discloses a possible cause of action under either Section 69 or Section 43 of the Contract Act. The practice of non-suiting plaintiffs in other than absolutely plain cases is to be deprecated. The art of pleading in this country has not reached the point at which it is safe to assume that the Pleader gives the exact effect of the contract pleaded and where the line of distinction between the actionable and the non-actionable was a fine one, as in this case, +he only proper course was to hear the evidence and examine the documents. This is doubly important where the pleading is applying the vernacular to complex legal conceptions and relations. It is most regrettable that the Subordinate Judge should have suggested that the plaintiff was officious in depriving the defendants of an opportunity of evading the payment of their legal and just debts.

2. The judgments below must be set aside, and the case sent back for trial de novo.

3. Costs in all three Courts will abide the result of the new trial.

Advocate List
Bench
  • HON'BLE JUSTICE SPENCER, J
  • HON'BLE JUSTICE COUTTS TROTTER, J
Eq Citations
  • (1916) ILR 39 MAD 834
  • (1915) 29 MLJ 381
  • AIR 1916 MAD 680
  • LQ/MadHC/1915/396
Head Note

Civil Procedure Code, 1908 - S. 7 — Practice and Procedure — Non-suit — Non-suiting of plaintiffs in other than absolutely plain cases deprecated — Case remanded for trial de novo