Privy Council Court March 1936 Judgments

Metropolitan Coal Co., Ltd. Vs. Jacob Pye

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1936PC158

SIR SIDNEY ROWLATT: This is an appeal from a decision of the High Court of Australia reversing a decision of the Supreme Court of New South Wales on a case stated under the provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act 1926-1929 S.37 (4) at the request of the appellant company, by the Workers' Compensation Commission of New South Wales. The only question for determination is whether an applicant for compensation under the Act must in order to establish his claim not only prove that he has contracted a disease arising out of and in the course of his employment, but go on to prove that it was not caused by silica dust (in which case the employer would not be liable)or whether it suffices for him to prove the first proposition only, leaving it to the employer to show, if he can, that the disease was due to silica dust. It is a short though important question of construction relating to the onus of proof. The directly relevant sections are as follows : Section 7 (1).-A worker who has receive...

Attygalle and Another Vs. the King

Court: Privy Council

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: This is a case which has given their Lordships considerable trouble. The prosecution was against accused 1 for performing an illegal operation, and against accused 2 for abetting him in that crime. At the trial the learned Judge gave a direction to the Jury, to which exception has been taken by Mr. DeSilva in a very clear and helpful argument, and in which the learned Judge explained to the Jury his view as to the burden of proof based upon his construction of S. 106 of Ordinance 14 of 1895 in the Ceylon Code. That section enacts that when any fact is especially within the knowledge of any person, the burden of proving that fact is upon him. With reference to that section the learned Judge told the Jury that : There is a section which is really the basis of circumstantial evidence so far as it occurs in Ceylon; that section says when any fact is especially within the knowledge of any person, the burden of proving that fact is upon him. Miss Maye-that is the person up...

Srimath Daivasikhamani Ponnambala Desikar and Another Vs. Periyanan Ch ...

Court: Privy Council

SIR GEORGE RANKIN: Eleven appeals are before the Board. Twelve ejectment suits were brought on 25th November 1918, by a Receiver appointed to manage certain Hindu temples and their endowments. One of these temples is dedicated to a deity Sri Subrahmanyaswami at a village called Kunnakudi, and to this temple belongs the village Uyyakondan part of which is a hamlet which goes by the name Murugan Endal. In 1865 the then manager of the temple granted a perpetual lease or cowle of Murugan Endal at a rent of Rs. 20 per annum to two Chettis called Palaniappa and Subrahmanyam, the lessees professing to act with the intention of dividing the profits of the land equally between two Chetti temples. The plaintiff in the present suits claimed (inter alia) that on his becoming entitled by his appointment as Receiver to the management of the Kunnakudi temple, the lease of 1865, even if binding theretofore upon the temple and its managers, ceased to have any validity or effect. Eleven of the suits rea...

Central Bank of India, Ltd., Vs. Guardian Assurance Co., Ltd., and Ano ...

Court: Privy Council

LORD MAUGHAM: This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court of Judicature at Lahore, dated 20th May 1932, which reversed a decree of the Subordinate Judge of Lahore, dated 16th July 1929, and dismissed the plaintiffs' suit with costs. The decree was made in an action commenced by plaint, dated 21st December 1927, brought by the appellants, the Central Bank of India, Limited, and Rustomji (called in what follows Seth Rustomji), a nominal respondent to this appeal against the Guardian Assurance Company, Limited, on certain policies of insurance whereby the plaintiffs (or one of them) were insured against loss by fire. The insurance related to a stock of wheat, wheat products and gunny bags stored in certain godowns of mills which belonged to Seth Rustomji. The buildings and the stock were charged or hypothecated to the present appellants called hereafter the Central Bank. Seth Rustomji was not represented on the appeal before their Lordships. As will appear from the facts to be state...

Dolatsinghji Jaswantsinghji Vs. Khachar Mansur Bukhad and Others

Court: Privy Council

LORD THANKERTON: The appellant in these eighteen consolidated appeals is the Ruler of Limbdi State in Kathiawar. The respondents are the mulgametis and landholders in 18 villages of the Khadol Barwala Taluka in Dhanduka in British India, each of the appeals relating to one of the villages. The appellant, as plaintiff in the suits, in substance asks for a declaration that he, and not the defendants, is entitled to be registered as talukdar under the Gujrat Talukdars Act (Bom. Act 6 of 1888), as amended by Act 2 of 1905. On 23rd April l928 the Subordinate Judge at Ahmedabad granted the appellant in each suit the declaration asked for. On appeal the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, by an order in each suit dated 9th October 1931, set aside the decrees of the Subordinate Judge and remanded the suits to allow the appellant an opportunity of joining the Government as a party to the claim as regards an agreement dated 12th August 1922, and his absolute ownership of the villages in question...

Effuah Amissah Vs. Effuah Krabah and Others

Court: Privy Council

LORD MAUGHAM: The claim of the Appellant in this case for herself and as representing the members of the family of Awooah Alookoo was in effect for a declaration that the members of the family of Awooah Alookoo are the owners of a number of specified lands and villages and of the lands and town of Dutch Seccondee, a town in the Western Province of the Gold Coast Colony, and for an account of all moneys and profits received by the defendants on account of, or out of, the said lands, villages and town from 1st January 1918, and also for an order upon the defendants to deliver up a stool described in the statement of claim as "the native state stool" and certain paraphernalia in the possession or custody of the defendants. The defendants (thirty-two in number) included the defendant Segu Winwah 2, the Ohene or chief of Dutch Seccondee, who was admittedly in actual possession of the state or town stool of Dutch Seccondee, together with the paraphernalia thereof and in possession in a certa...