Dave, J.—This is a second appeal by the plaintiffs against the judgment and decree of the learned Senior Civil Judge, Jaipur City dated 9th November, 1953 upholding the judgment and decree of Munsiff, West Jaipur dated 1st August, 1953.

2. The plaintiffs case was that defendant No. 2 Rameshwar was storekeeper of defendant No. 1 and that he used to purchase articles from the plaintiffs on credit, on behalf of defendant No. 1. It was further averred that Rameshwar purchased articles valued at Rs. 1,187/2/4 from the plaintiffs on behalf of the company. Out of the said amount, Rs. 610/3/- remained outstanding. The plaintiff thus claimed Rs. 610/3/-for principal and Rs. 65/8/- for interest up to the date of the suit.

3. Defendant No. 1 admitted that defendant No. 2 was in their employment as a storekeeper. It was also admitted that they had received articles valued at Rs. 1,187/2/-but it was stated that the company used to advance money to defendant No. 2 for purchasing articles on cash and that he had no authority to purchase any article on credit. According to defendant No. 1, the company had paid to defendant No. 2 for all the articles, they had received and, therefore, it was not liable to pay anything to the plaintiffs.

4. Defendant No. 2 Rameshwar also admitted that he had purchased articles worth Rs. 1,117/2/- from the plaintiffs and that he has received the entire money from the company defendant No. 1. His plea was that he had repaid the entire amount to the plaintiffs, that there was a separate transaction loan of Rs. 314/2/- between him and the plaintiffs, that he had executed a Khata of Rs. 326/10/- in the plaintiffs favour and even that amount was later on paid up.

5. On these pleadings, the trial court framed five issues and after recording evidence of both the parties, it came to the conclusion that defendant No. 2 had failed to pay the amount claimed by the plaintiffs and therefore, a decree for Rs. 676/2/- including defendant No. 1 on the ground that the company had not either by its words or conduct induced the plaintiffs to sell anything to Rameshwer on credit and, therefore, the provision of sec. 237 of the India Contract Act on which reliance was placed by the plaintiffs, were not attracted.

6. Aggrieved by this judgment and decree, the plaintiffs went in appeal which was heard by learned Senior Civil Judge Jaipur City, but they were unsuccessful and hence they have approached this Court.

7. Learned counsel for the appellants has urged that both the courts below had considered only sec. 237 of the Indian Contract Act, but their attention was not invited to sec. 70 of the same Act, that according to the provisions of sec. 70, the defendant No. 1 was also liable to pay Rs. 676/2/- to the plaintiffs, because the company had received all the articles and, therefore, it was bound either to make compensation to the plaintiffs or restore the articles received by it. Learned counsel has also referred to Secy, of State vs. G.T. Sarin & Co. (1) in support of his argument.

8. I have given due consideration to the argument raised by learned counsel and in my opinion, sec. 70 of the India Contract Act does not help the appellants. Sec. 70 runs as follows—

"Where a person lawfully does anything for another person, or delivers anything to him, not intending to do so gratuitously, and such other person enjoys the benefit thereof, the latter is bound to make compensation to the former in respect of, or restore, the thing so done or delivered."

9. It is obvious that section deals with what is popularly known as "quasi-contracts". But it is not applicable to the present case, because the defendant No. 1 never asked the plaintiffs to do anything for them or to deliver any property to them. Defendant No. 1 had, according to the concurrent findings of both the courts below, advanced money in cash to its employee, defendant No. 2 for purchasing articles from the open market on cash payment. There is further finding of both the courts below th

Click Here to Read the rest of this document