Alice M. Campbell vs Williams Chard and Co.

Fawcett, J.—His Lordship first dealt with the question of the amount of deposit and was of opinion that the plaintiff was entitled to a return of the deposit. The question of interest on the amount was then dealt with thus:] I have heard counsel on the question of interest. In the plaint this is claimed from the dates of actual payments of the two sums of Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 respectively. Mr. Binning for the plaintiff Bays that his client ought to get this interest, as it is obvious that she has inequitably been kept out of her money by the wrongful acts of the defendants, and cites the case of In re the Metropolitan Goal Consumers'' Association (Limited); Ex-parte Wainwright (1856) 59 L.J. Ch. 281 where in regard to a deposit for shares under a contract which the applicant was entitled to have rescinded, it was held he was entitled to interest upon his deposit by way of special damage. I should be very glad if I could see my way to allow the plaintiff interest at any rate from the expiry of the three months referred to in her letter of June 7, 1921. No doubt she had suffered some damage by the wrongful withholding of these deposits by the defendants, and I admit that there are conflicting decisions in the Calcutta, Madras and Allahabad High Courts some of which hold the Court is authorised to allow interest by way of damages in a proper case. But so far as I am aware, there is no case of this Court which has definitely differed from the view taken in the well-known leading case in England of London Chatham and Dover Railway Co. v. South Eastern Railway Co. [1893] A.C. 429 where the House of Lords held that interest could not be awarded by way of damages, apart from the special provisions of the Interest Act, The only case which allows an exception is that of Saundanappa v. Shivbasawa ILR (1907) 31 Bom. 354 : 9 Bom. L.R. 439 where it was allowed on the special ground that the parties in the suit were Hindus governed by the law of Mitakshara and that under the special circumstances interest could be awarded under Hindu law in that case. Otherwise the judgment, as I read it, follows the English decision I have quoted. There is also a decision of the Privy Council to the same effect in Juggmohun Ghose v. Kaisreechund (1862) 9 M.I.A. 256. It has always been my view that the law is correctly stated in Pollock & Mulla''s Indian Contract Act, 4th Ed., at pages 419 and 421; and I do not think that the authority of In re the Metropolitan Goal Consumers'' Association (Limited) (1889) 59 L.J. Ch. 281 which seems opposed to the subsequent decision of the House of Lords, is sufficient to justify my taking a different view of this case. Therefore I can only allow interest to the plaintiff from the date of the letter of October 31, 1922, in which notice was given to the defendants that interest would be claimed at the rate of nine per cent, per annum. Decree there-fore, for Rs. 1500 with interest at nine per cent, per annum from October 81, 1922, till judgment. Costs and interest on judgment at six per cent.