R.C. Lahoti, C.J. - (1.) The Food Corporation of India, the appellant herein filed a suit for recovery of Rs. 79,82,105.44p. against four defendants (in fact two sets of defendants) namely (i) the Assam Cooperative Marketing and Consumer Federation Limited through its Managing Director; (ii) the General Manager of the Federation (comprising the first set); (iii) the State of Assam through its Chief Secretary; and (iv) the Secretary to the Government of Assam in the Supply Department (comprising the second set) respectively impleaded as defendant Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4. Hereinafter, defendant Nos. 1 and 2 shall be referred to as the Federation and defendant Nos. 3 and 4 shall be referred to as the State for convenience sake.
(2.) According to the plaintiff, the State through its procuring agent, the Federation, requested the plaintiff through the Government of India to take over 20,000 metric ton of procured paddy of kharif season 1975-76 as per specification and price to be fixed by the Government of India. The request was acceded to by the plaintiff. It was also agreed that the plaintiff shall pay 90 per cent of the amount as advance in nine instalments on the condition that the balance 10 per cent will be paid after fixation of price by the Government of India. An amount of Rs. 1.8 crores was to be paid by way of advance. However, by mistake the plaintiff paid a sum of Rs. 2 crores as advance to the Federation during the period 16/2/76 to 27/2/76. In a meeting which took place on 20/9/1976, wherein the representatives of the parties and the Government of India were present, the price of paddy was fixed and it was resolved that the value of the paddy supplied by the Federation to the plaintiff was Rs. 1,60,63,190 as against an advance of Rs. 2 crores by the plaintiff to the Federation and thus there was an amount of Rs. 39,36,810/- paid by the plaintiff to the Federation in excess.
(3.) Here itself, it may be mentioned that the plaintiff also claimed an amount of Rs. 7,03/541/- from the Federation on account of quality cut. However, we do not propose to deal with that claim inasmuch as it has been negatived by the trial court itself and we do not find any reason to take a different view.;