SHEIKH MEHTAB S/O. SHEIKH FARID MUSALMAN Vs. DHARAMRAO BHUJANGRAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal which find difficult to decide is concerned with the claim of the plaintiff appellant for interest and costs. He is a forest contractor of Chanda, and entered into a contract with the Zamindar of Aheri in the Chanda district, Shrimant Dharamrao Bhujangrao, the respondent. He took a license to take wood from the respondent's jungle at certain rates for the period 1st February 1935 to 30th June 1936, and deposited Rs. 700 as security out of which the respondent could make deductions for any damage caused by the appellant. The clauses in the contract signed by the appellant relating to this deposit are as follows: Clause 7.--"Out of the amount of this deposit I have paid Rs. 500, five hundred rupees, under the Challan No...dated. 1935 and the remaining Rs. 200, two hundred rupees, I will pay as soon as the agreement deed is written on the stamp and will take the Challan. Clause 8--"I have deposited seven hundred rupees by way of security. Out of it I will be paid the amount which will remain after deduction is made on account of damage etc. at the end of the contract.

(2.) THE appellant applied in January 1936, prematurely, for the return of part of this deposit, and in January 1938 had a letter sent by his pleader in the following terms: "To The Zamindar Sahib, Aheri Estate Aheri. My dear Rajasahib, I have been asked by my client Sk. Mehtab son of Shekh Farid to make you the following request: That my client had taken some contracts in your estate and in lieu of those transactions he had deposited Rs. 500 and Rs. 200, total Rs. 700 with you. The term of the contract expired on 30th June 1936. May I now request you to kindly remit the amount of Rs. 700 within 15 days from the receipt of this letter, otherwise my client has instructed me to take necessary legal steps. 2. To this the respondent replied in February 1938: Your client Mr. Seikh Mehtab contractor may be informed that he should come down in office and see his account in the month of March 1938, when his accounts will be cleared.

(3.) I think the first appellate Court is wrong in law when it decides that as the money was a deposit therefore the plaintiff had to go to Aheri to fetch it. When the manner and place of repayment of the money are not the subject of express contract, it is the duty of the Court to gather what, by necessary implication having regard to the nature of the contract and the circumstances under which it was entered into, the parties must have meant. It is true that a limited company entitled to receive money is not on the same footing as an ordinary individual who may at any moment change his residence, and there may be a good reason to infer that money due to a company is to be paid by a debtor in another country at the offices of the company: vide Charles Duval and Co. Limited v. Gans & Pick (1904) 2 K.B. 685. But the mere fact that the Aheri estate carries on business at Aheri, though it may support an inference in a particular contract that money payable under the contract is payable at Aheri, can hardly support an inference that debts owed by the estate are to be paid there and nowhere else. The Aheri estate however has a treasury and the money was paid in by challan as appears from the contract itself, and I think the first appellate Court is right in saying that the Aheri estate would not have to seek its creditor and carry a bag of rupees or a wallet of notes to Chanda, or for the matter of that, to Peshawar or Shillong, or any place which the creditor might require.