Privy Council Court February 1948 Judgments

Sri Kakulam Subrahmanyam and Another Vs. Kurra Subba Rao

Court: Privy Council

LORD MORTON OF HENRYTON: This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Madras dated 22 - 11 - 1943, affirming the judgment of the District Judge of Guntur dated 20 - 4 - 1942, who had allowed the respondent's appeal from the judgment of the Subordinate Judge of Bapatla dated 31 - 7 - 1939. [2] Leave to appeal to His Majesty in Council was given by the High Court of Judicature at Madras on the ground that the case involved a substantial question of law as to the true construction of S. 53A, T. P. Act. That section is in the following terms: "53A. Part Performance - Where any person contracts to transfer for consideration any immoveable property by writing signed by him or on his behalf from which the terms necessary to constitute the transfer can be ascertained with reasonable certainty, and the transferee has, in part performance of the contract, taken possession of the property or any part thereof, or the transferee, being already in possession, continues in pos...

Nawazish Ali Khan Vs. Ali Raza Khan

Court: Privy Council

Date of Decesion:(5 -2 -1948 and 26 -2 -1948) SIR JOHN BEAUMONT: These are consolidated appeals from a judgment and decree of the Chief Court of Oudh, dated 12 - 1 - 1943, Reported in ('43) 30 AIR 1943 Oudh 243-Ed. which modified a decree of the said Court in its original civil jurisdiction, dated 30 - 10 - 1937. Sardar Nawazish Ali Khan will be referred to herein - after as "the appellant", and Sardar Ali Raza Khan as "the respondent." [2] The family to which the parties belong are Shiah Mohammadans of the Ashna Aahari Sect governed by the Imamia law. [3] The litigation which led up to these appeals arose out of the wills of Nawab Sir Nawazish Ali Khan and Nawab Nasir Ali Khan, who were related to the parties to these appeals as shown in the pedigree following : NAWAB ALI RAZA KHAN (died 24th June 1865) Sir Nawazish Ali Khan, K.C.I.E. Nawab Nasir Ali Khan Nisar Ali Khan (died 1890) (died 19th Nov. 1896) (died 1878) Hidayat Ali Khan Khan Bahadur Sardar (born about 1878; Mohammad Ali Kh...

Bhagwanji Morarji Goculdas Vs. Alembic Chemical Works Co. Ltd. and Oth ...

Court: Privy Council

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT: This is an appeal from the judgment and decree of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay dated 24th November 1943, dismissing the appellant's appeal from the judgment and decree dated 16th December 1942, of Chagla J. exercising original civil jurisdiction of the High Court. [2] In the suit out of which this appeal arises the appellant, who was plaintiff, claimed against respondent 1, the Alembic Chemical Works Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "the company") Rs. 9,00,000 damages for breach of an agreement of 7th December 1907, to employ the firm of Kotibhasker Amin and Co., of which the appellant claimed to be a member, as managing agents of the company. [3] The claim arises in this way. The company was formed in the year 1907 and under el. 6 of the Memorandum of Association it was provided that the members who then constituted or who might thereafter constitute the firm of Messrs. Kotibhasker Amin and Co. were thereby appointed secretaries, treasurers and agents...

Pearey Lal Vs. Nanak Chand and Others

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1948PC108

LORD NORMAND: The suit in which this appeal arises was begun in June 1938, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge in Delhi by the respondent, Nanak Chand, with whom his two sons were associated as plaintiffs, against his father, the appellant. The respondent claimed that the family was a joint Hindu family governed by the Benares School of the Mitakshara, and prayed for a partition, of a cycle business carried on at Delhi and Bombay, as he alleged, as a joint family business. He said in his plaint that the appellant had turned him out of the business in September 1936, and had not allowed him since then to take any part in it. [2] There is now no question that the family was a joint Hindu family. The respondent, who was born in 1891 and married in 1912, resided in the appellant's house till 1917 according to the finding, now acquiesced in, of the Subordinate Judge. A younger son, Raghu Nath Prasad, had always had his home in the appellant's house save when he was attending to the Bombay...

Victor Maduka and Others Vs. Eseodimegwu

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1949PC54

Lord Simonds: This appeal, which is brought from a judgment of the West African Court of Appeal dismissing with costs an appeal from a judgment of the High Court of Enugu-Onitsha, is concerned with the rival claims of two tribes known as the Umuoris and the Orokwus to a strip of land at or near Onitsha in Nigeria. The appellants, who were defendants in the action, are three members of the Umuori tribe and the respondent, who was plaintiff and purported to sue on behalf of the Chief Aboh of Orokwu, is a member of that tribe. The strip of land in dispute, which will sometimes be referred to as "the disputed land", is a strip of varying width which lies to the west of a line running in a northerly direction from the road from Nobi to Adazi to the Ndide river which is coloured red on the plan being the ex. "a" in these proceedings. [2] It is common ground that on 9th October 1942, when these proceedings were commenced by originating summons issued in the High Court of the Enugu-Onitsha Jud...

Parikh Atmaram Maneklal Vs. Bai Hira

Court: Privy Council

LORD NORMAND: The appellant, Parikh Atmaram Maneklal, was the defendant in the main suit which was brought by the respondent, Bai Hira, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Ahmedabad for a declaration that a document dated 12 - 6 - 1926, was not binding on her and for certain consequential reliefs. The chief question in the appeal is whether these consequential reliefs are time barred by Art. 91, Limitation Act (Act IX of 1908). [2] The respondent is the widow of the appellant's son Balabhai who died intestate and without issue on 18 - 2 - 1926. The family had been an undivided Hindu family but on 31 - 12 - 1925, a physical partition took place between Balabhai on the one hand and the remaining members of the family on the other. Balabhai had received before his death immovable and movable properties valued at Rs. 1,12,000 and there remained certain properties to be physically divided. Among the movable property received by him were ornaments to the value of Rs. 13,600. The value o...

Mosur Subramania Sastri Vs. Seshama Raju and Others

Court: Privy Council

LORD MORTON OF HENRYTON: This is an appeal from a judgment and decree of the High Court of Judicature at Madras dated 31st March 1944, which reversed a judgment and decree of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Chittoor dated 7th July 1943. 2. The only question arising on the appeal is whether the appellant can properly claim, in the execution petition mentioned hereafter, an order for the sale of a village named Mylaravada. The Subordinate Judge has decided that he can, the High Court has decided that he cannot. 3. The facts of the case are not in dispute and are as follows. The village of Mylaravada belonged to the Raja of Karvetnagar. On 2nd February 1882, he effected a mortgage covering this village and another village in favour of D. Krishna Reddi and D. Venkatarami Reddi for about Rs. 33,000. On 21st February 1885, he created a second mortgage over the said villages in favour of the same persons for Rs. 6,500. On 6th March 1891, he mortgaged for the third time the same properti...

H.H.B. Gill and Another Vs. the King

Court: Privy Council

LORD SIMONDS: This appeal which is brought from a judgment of the Federal Court of India dated 11 - 12 - 1946, raises questions of difficulty and general importance. They relate in the first place to the problem which has so often been debated in the Courts of India in regard to the meaning and effect of S. 197, Criminal PC, and in the second place to the admisaibility of evidence upon a charge of conspiracy. [2] The nature of the case demands that the facts should be set out at some length. As a result of the judgment now under appeal the appellants H. H. B. Gill and A. Lahiri stand convicted for offences under S. 165 read with S. 120B, Penal Code. [3] The appellant Gill joined the Indian Army Ordnance Corps in December 1939. He was appointed staff Captain in the Contracts Directorate from January 1940, and in April 1941, he was given the temporary rank of Major as Deputy Assistant Director of Contracts at Calcutta. In this office he was responsible for the issue and acceptance of ten...

Wallace Brothers and Co., Ltd, Vs. the Commissioner of Income - Tax, B ...

Court: Privy Council

LORD UTHWATT : This is an appeal by leave of the Federal Court of India from a judgment of that Court dismissing an appeal by the appellant, Wallace Brothers and Co. Ltd., from a judgment of the High Court of Bombay answering in favour of the respondent the Commissioner of Income - tax, Bombay District certain questions of law referred to the High Court by the Income - tax Appellate Tribunal. [2] Two questions are in issue: first the validity of certain provisions of the Indian Income - tax Act, 1922 - 1939, by virtue of which there was made on the appellant Company an assessment to income - tax on income which included income arising without British India, and second, the jurisdiction of a particular income - tax officer to make that assessment. [3] The directly relevant provisions of the Income - tax Act, 1922 - 1939, are contained in Ss. 3, 4, 4A and 64. These so far as it is necessary to state them are as follows: 3. Where any Act of the Central Legislature enacts that Income - tax...

israel Margolis Vs. Sarkis Izmirilian

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1949PC57

Lord MacDermott: This appeal is from a judgment dated 12th December 1944, of the Supreme Court of Palestine, sitting as a Court of Civil Appeal (Edwards and Frumkin JJ.), setting aside a judgment of the District Court or Tel Aviv dated 12th March 1944, and awarding the respondent and plaintiff (as seller) damages against the appellant and defendant (as buyer) for the latter's breach of a contract in writing for the sale of cotton seed, dated 1st March 1942. [2] In the Palestinian Courts numerous issues, technical and otherwise, were raised between the parties. Those requiring determination by the Board are, however, comparatively few and the narrative of events may be curtailed accordingly. [3] The contract was in the following terms : "Alexandria, 1st March 1942. Seller.- Charles Schlick, Alexandria, or substitute people from Sudan. Buyer- Israel Margolis, 11, Yehuda Halevy Street, Tel-Aviv, Palestine. Quantity.-1000 (thousand) tons of 1000 Kos. each. Goods.-Sudanese cotton seeds, new...