CANARA BANK Vs. T K LAKSHMI NARAYANAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A suit is laid on file by a Bank against its erstwhile employee alleging that he had misappropriated certain sums of money - not an unusual scenario, except that the suit is filed over thirty years after the alleged misappropriation was concededly detected by the Bank. The explanation of the Bank for this is that they had initiated criminal proceedings against him which took more than thirty years to conclude travelling all the way to the Hon'ble Supreme Court and being finally concluded by an acquittal of the employee.

(2.) The legal assertion of the Bank is that their cause of action to sue the employee arises only after the criminal proceedings concluded and they rely on Section 10 and Article 58 of the Limitation Act in support. We, however, are persuaded to find against this and we will record reasons for our view presently after detailing essential facts.

(3.) This appeal has been filed by the Canara Bank, which is a nationalised bank, against the judgment and decree of the Sub Court, Sulthan Bathery in O.S.No.93 of 1996, filed by them against the respondent herein, Sri.T.K.Lakshmi Narayanan, who was earlier in their service. For the purpose of convenience, we will refer to the parties as they are arrayed in the civil court. We will, therefore, refer to Canara Bank as the plaintiff and Sri.T.K.Lakshmi Narayanan as the defendant.