- (1.) THESE are four appeals Nos. 69-D, 70-D, 71-D and 85-D of 1953 filed by the Delhi municipal Committee against decrees of various amounts for damages passed in favour of the plaintiff respondents.
(2.) THE cases arise out of an incident which happened in the morning of 7-2-1951 when the top portion of the famous Clock Tower which is stood in one of the main business centres of Delhi, chandni Chowk, suddenly collapsed with the result that a number of persons were killed or injured by the falling debris. The plaintiffs in these suits are relatives of four of the persons who were killed. In appeal No. 69-D/53, the plaintiffs were the widow, a minor son and two minor daughters of Ram Parkash. In appeal No. 70-D/53 the plaintiff Jagdish Raj is a widower whose wife was killed. In appeal no. 71-D/53 the person killed was the wife of Tek Chand plaintiff and mother of Munshi Lal, kala Ram, Bhandari Lal and Rani Devi minor plaintiffs. In appeal No. 85-D/53 the plaintiff is a minor son of Gopi Chand who was killed. The first three cases were dealt with by a single judgment and were consolidated to the extent that while the plaintiffs led separate evidence, mainly on the question of damages, the evidence of the defendant was treated as being common. The lower Court awarded damages in a sum of Rs. 25,000/- to Sobhag Wanti etc. , Rs. 15,000/- to munshi Lal etc. , Rs. 2,000/- to Jagdish Raj and Rs. 20,000/- to Kuldip Raj.
(3.) THE two questions involved in the appeals are the quantum of damages in individual cases assuming that the Committee is found liable to pay damages and the question common to all the cases, whether the collapse of the Clock Tower was not due to the negligence of the Municipal authorities. In one of the suits the onus had been placed on the plaintiff to show that the fall of the Tower was due to the negligence of the Committee, but it is obvious that in a case like this when a building has unexpectedly collapsed, and whenever for technical reasons the onus is placed, it becomes the duty of the persons responsible for the maintenance of the building to show that the building was kept in a proper condition, and that its collapse was not due to any negligence, since the persons responsible for the maintenance of the buildings are the only persons who are in a position to reveal the true state of affairs.;