D.S. Tewatia, J. - (1.) THE State of Uttar Pradesh, Defendant -Appellant, entered into a contract Exhibit P. 1 on August 7, 1952, with the Plaintiff -Respondent firm (Messrs Pearl Hosiery Mills, Ludhiana) for supply of ten thousand khaki woollen jerseys of a given specification. The requisite number of jerseys were duly supplied by the Plaintiff -Respondent and certificates Exhibits P. 4 and P. 5 envisaged to be issued after inspection of the goods by the requisite authority under Clause 9 of the agreement were issued on November 14, 1952 and November 24, 1952, respectively by the authority concerned and pursuant thereof the Plaintiff -Respondent received final payment of the goods on January 8, 1953. Clause 18 of the said contract envisaged the return of the security amount deposited, which in this case was Rs. 4,250, six months after the expiry of the contract and after the Director of Cottage Industries had satisfied himself that all the terms of the said contract had been duly and faithfully carried out by the contractor.
(2.) THE Plaintiff -Respondent after having received the final payment for the good supplies, from time to time, called upon the, Defendant -Appellant to release the said security amount which was lying in deposit in Post -office Savings Bank Account at Ludhiana in the name of the Director of the Cottage Industries. The Defendant -Appellant after a long silence intimated the Plaintiff -Respondent that the security amount in question stood forfeited as after a laboratory test of the goods in question, it was found that the goods supplied did not conform to the specification of the sample agreed upon. This reply led in the first instance to the reference to the arbitrator and later, when the former course proved abortive, to the filling of the present suit for recovery of Rs. 5,397.50 P., which amount included the security deposit and the interest accrued thereon at the rate -of 6 per cent per annum. The Defendant -State resisted the suit inter alia with the plea -that the Ludhiana Court had no jurisdiction, that the suit was barred by limitation and the Plaintiff was not entitled to recover the security amount as the same stood correctly forfeited.
(3.) ON the pleadings of the parties, six issues were framed and out of these only the following three are relevant for the decision of this appeal: (1) Has this Court jurisdiction to try the suit? (2) Is the suit within time? (3) Was the Defendant justified in forfeiting the security ire dispute? The trial Court decided all the issues in favour of the Plaintiff and against the Defendant and decreed the suit. Being dissatisfied with the judgment and decree of the trial Court, the Defendant has come up in this Court by way of this appeal.;