Union of India (UOI) vs Abdul Hamid

Sarkar, J.—This matter comes before us u/s 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act.

The Plaintiff in this suit had sent two parcels by what is called "value-payable post," from Malda in India to Cox''s Bazar in Pakistan. He did not receive from the postal authorities the value due in respect of the parcels and claimed that value in this suit.

There is a section in the Post Office Act (Act VI of 1898) dealing with value-payable post, namely, Section 34. That section provides that the Government shall not incur any liability in respect of the sum to be recovered from the addressee against the delivery of a value-payable parcel unless and until that sum has been received from the addressee.

Sections 35 and 74 of this Act give power to the Government to make rules for purposes mentioned therein. Under the rule making power, certain rules have been framed which are called the Indian Post Offices Rules. Rule 102 of these rules provides that the Government shall not incur any liability in respect of the sum specified for remittance to the sender in respect of a value-payable parcel unless a claim for that sum has been preferred within one year from the date of the posting of the article. The Government''s defence to this suit was based on these two provisions, namely, Section 34 and Rule 102. These defences were rejected in the Court below and hence this petition by the Government. The question is, was the rejection right?

It is said on behalf of the Government that it has not been proved that the Government received the amount payable on the parcels from the addressee and, therefore, the Government is exonerated from liability u/s 34. It is not disputed by learned advocate for the Plaintiff that unless proof of receipt of the money from the addressee is given, the Government cannot be made liable, nor that the onus of proving this lies on the Plaintiff. The question, therefore, is one of proof.

A letter written by a post office official in Pakistan and addressed to the postal department of the Government of India was produced. In that letter, it is stated that the money had been recovered by a Pakistan postal peon from the addressee, but that it had been misappropriated by that peon. It is. said that this is evidence that the money had been recovered from the addressee. I am inclined to hold that this contention of the Plaintiff is right. The letter certainly is an admission by the Pakistan postal authorities of the receipt of the money. If it can be said that the Pakistan postal authorities were the agents of the Indian Government in the matter of recovering the money from the addressee, the admission made by the former would he evidence against the latter u/s 18 of the Evidence Act. It seems to me that the Pakistan postal authorities were such agents of the Indian Government. In undertaking to have the parcels sent from Malda to Cox''s Bazar and deliver them there to the addressee, the Indian postal authorities had to enter into an engagement with the Pakistan postal department for carrying the parcels over the Pakistan territory and delivering them to the addressee. They must, therefore, have appointed the Pakistan postal department as their agent for the purposes of the carriage and delivery. A close parallel is the case where a railway receives goods at one of its stations for carriage over its system as also the system of another railway and for delivery at a station on the other railway. It has been held that in such a case the other railway company will be regarded as the agent of the receiving railway. Chuni Lal and Ors. v. The Nizam''s Guaranteed State Railway Company, Ld. ILR (1906) 29 All. 228. It follows, therefore, that the admission by the Pakistan official was made as agent of the Indian Government and is available to the Plaintiff as evidence against the latter for proof of the fact that the money had been recovered from the addressee.

The learned Assistant Government Pleader then contended that what is required to be proved u/s 34 was not simply receiving money from the addressee but it must also be proved that the Government of India itself received that money. His point is that even if the letter of the Pakistan official was evidence, it did not show that the Government of India had received the money. I do not accept this contention for it is not necessary u/s 34 to prove that the Government of India had received the money. The section requires that it has to be proved that the money was received from the addressee and, therefore, all that the Plaintiff has to prove is that the addressee paid the money. In a case like the present, where the parcels were deliverable outside India, the Indian postal authorities could not have recovered the money from the addressee, for the delivery must have been through a foreign post office. If the Indian postal authorities could not have received the moneys from the addressee, such receipt cannot, of course, be necessary to prove. Further, the receipt of the money by the Pakistan peon was really a receipt by the Indian Government, for, as already seen, the peon was the latter''s agent for receiving the money.

The question whether money was received from the addressee can be looked at from another point of view also. A presumption clearly arises in this case u/s 114 of the Evidence Act. It is well known that a presumption can be very rightly made that an article proved to have been posted was delivered in due course to the addressee. I find no reason why this presumption should not apply to this case. It has been proved, indeed admitted, that the value-payable parcels were posted at the post office at Malda and correctly addressed. The parcels were never returned to the Plaintiff. From that the presumption arises that they reached the addressee in due course. It was said that such a presumption cannot be applied where the addressee lived in a foreign country. I am unable to agree. The presumption does not depend on the fact that the addressee lives within the country in which the article was posted. The principle is that the Court can presume something which, having regard to the course of public and private business, may be taken to have happened. Now, it is well known that in a civilised country the normal course of postal business is to carry letters and parcels to the addressee. For this reason, I do not think it would make any difference to the question of the making of the presumption that the addressee lives in a place outside the territory of India, provided a proper postal system exists in that place. There is no reason to think that the postal system in Pakistan is other than proper. From the presumption that the parcels were delivered to the addressee arises the fact that they must have been delivered against payment for it was a case of value-payable parcels. I have, therefore, come to the conclusion that the Plaintiff must be said to have proved in this case that the addressee of the parcels paid the money due thereon.

The other question is whether a claim had been made under Rule 102 within a year of the posting of the articles. The articles were posted, it appears, on October 23, 1947. There are, on the record, copies of certain letters addressed by the Plaintiff to the Indian postal department and the earliest of these is dated sometime in the beginning of October, 1948. This letter states the fact of the posting of the parcels and also complains that the money due in respect of them had not been received. It refers to an earlier intimation given to the post office at Malda that the money on the value-payable parcels had not been received. If these letters are claims within the meaning of Rule 102, they are certainly made within the time prescribed. The only point that the learned Assistant Government Pleader took was that they could not properly be said to be claims within that rule. As I understood him, he said that in order properly to be a claim, the letter had to state that if the money was not paid a suit would be filed. I am unable to agree that that is the proper reading of Rule 102. All that is necessary is that a claim should be made in time, the object apparently being that the Government might take steps to find out what had happened before the enquiry became too late. A belated claim might prevent the Government from making fruitful enquiries as the delay may have caused disappearance of relevant evidence. In order, therefore, that a claim can be said to have been made, a request for payment of money is enough. That will put the Government on the enquiry, if it is minded to make one. Further, in a case of a value-payable parcel all that can be claimed is the money, because that is all that is due to the sender, and, therefore, when it is said "I "have sent my parcels sometime ago but have not received any "money", that is quite enough claim for the purposes of this rule.

The result is that I find no reason to interfere with the judgment of the learned Small Cause Court Judge at Malda. The Rule is, therefore, discharged with costs.

Das Gupta, J.

I agree.