Privy Council Court December 1942 Judgments

Ahmedabad Municipality Vs. Secretary of State

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1943PC21

SIR MADHAVAN NAIR: This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay dated 8th February 1938, which reversed a decree of the First Class Subordinate Judge of Ahmedabad dated 31st March 1933, in favour of the plaintiff - the appellant before the Board. The plaintiff is the Ahmedabad Municipality; and the defendant is the Secretary of State. The question for decision is whether, in the circumstances mentioned below, the plaintiff is entitled to recover from the defendant sums of money amounting to Rs. 48,156-5-0 together with interest which were deducted by the Government of Bombay from grants for primary education made by them to the Ahmedabad Municipality, and during its supersession, to the Committee of Management. The facts are not in dispute, and may be briefly stated: On 9th March 1920, the Government of Bombay sanctioned the grant of Rs.4 lakhs to the plaintiff in connection with a scheme for the acquisition of building sites for primary schools. Two of the...

Muralidhar Chatterjee Vs. International Film Co., Ltd.

Court: Privy Council

SIR GEORGE RANKIN: This appeal raises an important question of commercial law under the Contract Act. It is brought by the plaintiff, who carries on business from Calcutta as a distributor of cinema films. The defendants are a limited company who import such films into India. The contract between the parties was expressed in a letter, dated 8th May 1936, sent by the defendants to the plaintiff, under which the plaintiff was to maintain at his own cost the defendants' office in Calcutta and handle their films in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam and Burma in conjunction with the defendants' head office at Cawnpore. The main stipulation was in the following terms: That we shall deliver you a brand new positive print of each picture approximately at the average of 1 picture a month and we shall pay for all the royalties to the producers for the exploitation of the pictures and in consideration of this, you will pay us a sum of Rs. 1750 towards the cost of each print supplied to you. Such payme...

Ram Lal Dutt Sarkar Vs. Dhirendra Nath Roy and Others

Court: Privy Council

SIR GEORGE RANKIN: This appeal is brought by special leave from a decree dated 29th March 1938 passed by the High Court at Calcutta on second appeal. The respondents have not appeared before the Board and Mr. Wallach for the appellant has carefully discharged his duty to see that all relevant matters are placed before their Lordships. The decree under appeal reversed the decrees of the Additional District Judge and Subordinate Judge at Faridpur dated respectively 17th April 1935 and 6th February 1933. The suit was begun on 15th April 1931. It was a suit for three years' rent of a permanent tenure which had been granted by the predecessors of the plaintiffs and of certain pro forma defendants to one Srinath Sarkar by a patta dated 8th July 1875 and for which a kabuliyat had been executed by Srinath on 22nd May 1877. He was engaged on zemindari management in the service of the plaintiffs' predecessors who granted him the patta. He died childless in 1890 and his widow Patambari Dassee suc...

Babu Raja Mohan Manucha and Others Vs. Babu Manzoor Ahmad Khan and Oth ...

Court: Privy Council

SIR GEORGE RANKIN: This is an appeal by the plaintiffs in a suit to enforce a registered mortgage dated 12th August 1919 whereby a village called Mahona Poorab in the District of Sultanpur in Oudh was made security for the sum of Rs.10,000 with interest at 9 per cent., with half-yearly rests. The grantor of the mortgage was Iltifat Ahmad Khan, the defendants' father, and the grantee was the plaintiffs' father Moti Lal Manucha. The deed contained a personal covenant to pay the interest half-yearly and to repay the principal at the end of three years. The suit was brought in the Subordinate Judge's Court at Sultanpur on 9th August 1934 by which time both of the original parties to the deed had died. The plaint sought relief, both by sale of the mortgaged property and by enforcement of the covenant. The defendants by their written statement of 30th November 1934 maintained among other defences that the mortgage sued upon was void, having been made in circumstances which brought into opera...

Nawab Habibulla Vs. Commissioner of Income-tax, Bengal

Court: Privy Council

LORD THANKERTON: The appellant is the hereditary mutwalli of a wakf estate, and as such he draws remuneration, and the question in the appeal arises on a claim by him that the income thus received by him is exempt from taxation, which came before the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal on a reference by the respondent, at the appellant's request, under S. 66 (2), Income-tax Act, 1922, with a statement of the case and the opinion of the respondent rejecting the appellant's claim to exemption. The question of law referred to the Court was: Whether in the facts and circumstances of the case the sum of Rs. 49,500 received by the assessee as his remuneration as mutwalli was 'agricultural income' within the meaning of S.2 (1), Income-tax Act? For the assessment year 1938-39, the appellant was assessed for income-tax purposes on an amount which included the sum of Rs. 49,500 under the head of salaries, which was the appellant's remuneration as mutwalli for the year of account a...

Lala Raghbir Singh Vs. Seth Bam Rattan and Others

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1943PC40

LORD MACMILLAN: The sole question presented for decision in this appeal is whether (1) certain shares of the Delhi Cloth and General Mills Company Ltd., and (2) an interest in a timber business carried on by the firm of Sultan Singh and Co., were the separate self- acquired property of the late Rai Bahadur Sultan Singh or were the property of the Hindu joint family of which Sultan Singh was a member. The question arose in consequence of a decree for Rupees 24,798-4-6 and costs obtained by the respondents on 22nd August 1934 in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Lahore against the appellant, recoverable from the estate of the late Sultan Singh, the appellant's father. The respondents on 29th November 1934 applied in the Court of the District Judge at Delhi for execution of this decree by the attachment of a kohti or bungalow in Delhi alleged to have been owned by Sultan Singh. The application was resisted by the appellant on various grounds and appropriate issues were framed. After t...

John Oni Akerele Vs. the King

Court: Privy Council

LORD PORTER: The appellant in this case is a duly qualified medical practitioner who carried on practice in Nigeria. On 7th March 1941 he was charged before the Assistant Judge at Umudhia Sessions of the High Court of the Enugu-Onitsha Division in the Protectorate of Nigeria on three charges : (i) Manslaughter, contrary to S. 325 of the Criminal Code, in killing one Kalu Ibe in May 1940. (ii) Reckless and negligent acts contrary to S. 343 (1) (e) of the said Code in giving medical treatment to the said Kalu in a manner so rash or negligent as to endanger human life or to be likely to cause harm (iii) Reckless and negligent acts contrary to S. 343 (1) (f) of the said Code in dispensing or administering medicine or poisonous or dangerous matter to the said Kalu. The learned Assistant Judge who tried the case without a jury found the appellant not guilty on the second count but guilty on the first and third counts, sentenced him on the first charge to three years' imprisonment with hard l...