BINDRABAN ALIAS BALMUKUND Vs. GIPRAILWAY COMPANY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (3-5-1926)-I think the Division Bench has taken care to refer only one point of law to the Full Bench, viz., if goods are put on a train at one particular station in a sealed wagon, and subsequently at a later station, they are found missing from it, the evidence of the theft being provided by the only fact that the seals are broken, whether the theft amounts to "robbery from a running train" within the meaning of Risk Note B. The question whether in this particular case there was or was not wilful neglect has not been referred to this Full Bench, and I am not called upon to express any opinion on that point. Had it bean necessary to say anything I would not have been prepared to accept in its entirety all that has fallen on the point from the lips of my learned brother who is presiding over this Bench.

(2.) The point which we have to decide is whether the word "robbery from a running train" means simple theft unaccompanied by any force or show of any force to any person, and committed behind the back of railway servants so as not to causa any fear in any one's mind. It is not necessary for me to go the length of saying that the word "robbery" in this risk note should be given the same exact definition as is given to it in the Indian Penal Code. Nor is it necessary for me to say that in every private contract in India whenever the word "robbery" is used, it must always mean theft attended with violence. The question before us is one of an interpretation of this particular Risk Note B.

(3.) We cannot lose sight of the fact that this risk note is not drafted by a layman who may express himself in loose colloquial language, but has been prepared carefully by the railway administration with the approval of the Governor-General in Council; and we are therefore entitled to presume that it was drafted after expert legal advice, and that no word has been put in inadvertently. In this Risk Note we find the use of two words, "theft" and "robbery", which ordinarily have different meanings. Is there any justification for assuming that,although in She same document these two different words have been used, they are intended to have one and the same meaning?