Tulsi Ram and Others vs Shiam Sunder and Others

In this suit, the plaintiffs prayed for the relief that the defendants may be ordered to render an account of the purchases and sales and the moneys sent by the plaintiffs, as well as of the profit and loss in the business. The plaintiffs described themselves as having a commission agency at a shop in the Bazar of the city of Bareilly. The defendants are described as having a shop at Bombay. An application was made u/s 24 of Act XIV of 1882, for transfer of the suit which the plaintiffs had instituted in the Court at Bareilly, to Bombay. This Court decided u/s 24 that the suit should proceed in the Court at Bareilly. The Subordinate Judge accordingly heard the case and decreed a part of the claim. The defendants then went in appeal to the Court of the District Judge at Bareilly, and that Court found as a fact that the cause of action arose in Bombay, then he says, the "respondents have failed to show that their cause of action arose at Bareilly. It appears to me that it arose, if anywhere, in Bombay in the failure of the appellants to despatch proper accounts by post to the respondent''s address." He accordingly very rightly set aside the decree and returned the plaint for presentation to the proper Court. In appeal here, it is contended that the lower appellate Court was wrong in returning the plaint for presentation to the Court at Bombay. It has already been held by this Court in Tularam v. Harjivan Dass 5 A. 60, that Section 24 of the CPC of 1882, does not empower the High Court to order that a suit instituted within its own jurisdiction should proceed in a Court in the jurisdiction of another High Court. We are not prepared to differ from what was there laid down. We are, moreover, of opinion that the District Judge rightly held that the plaintiffs have failed to prove that their cause of action arose in Bareilly. The result is that this appeal is dismissed with costs.