A notice served on the Chief Commercial Superintendent is sufficient compliance with the statutory requirement under Section 80 CPC, provided that it is left at the office of the General Manager in the hands of a responsible senior official.

JUDGEMENT:- The defendant is the appellant before this court and the plaintiff is the respondent. The plaintiff company placed orders with Messrs. Hindustan Steel Ltd., Calcutta, for 24-4 metric tons for the Trichy unit and 23-9 metric tons for Tanjore unit. The two consignments were loaded from Durgapur Steel Plant in two separate wagons. When the wagons arrived at Tiruchi goods-yard there was shortage in weight. The plaintiff filed a suit against the defendant for recovery of a sum of Rs. 3451-78 being the value of the shortage of the Tanjore consignment and Rs. 6442-02 being the value of the shortage of the Tiruchi consignment. They have also claimed weighment and demurrage charges for the Tanjore consignment. The defendant resisted the claim on various grounds and one of the pleas taken was that the plaintiff must strictly prove service of valid notice as required under S.78-B of the Indian Railways Act and Sec. 80 of the Civil Procedure Code. The trial court rejected all the contentions of the defendant and decreed the suit and this was confirmed in appeal by the lower appellate Court. Hence the present second appeal.

2. The learned counsel for the defendant-appellant contended that notice is a condition precedent to the institution of the suit against the Government and in the case of a suit against the Central Government relating to the railways, the notice must be sent to the General Manager of that railway as required under S.80 (1) (b) of the Civil Procedure Code and as there is non-compliance of this statutory requirement, the plaintiff's suit is bound to fail. In support of his contention, the learned counsel relied on a decision of the Kerala High Court reported in Dahyabhai Patel and Co. v. The Union of India, represented by the General Manager, Southern Railway, Madras, ILR (1959) Ker 1135 : (AIR 1960 Ker 135).

In the decision relied on, the Kerala High Court has held that the provisions of S.80 C.P.C. are explicit and mandatory and should be strictly complied with, and a notice sent to the Chief Commercial Superintendent cannot be treated as notice under S.80 (1) (b) which should be addressed to the General Manager of the Railway and as the notice was wrongly addressed, it is defective and there is no compliance of S.80 (1) (b) C.P.C. In the case reported in Union of India v. Suraj Bhan Khandelwall, AIR 1963 Assam 179 the notice under S.80 C.P.C. was addressed to the Deputy Chief Commercial Superintendent, and the question arose whether the statutory requirement under S.80 (1) (b) has been complied with. It was held that all that is required to be done under S.80 C.P.C. is that the notice should have been either delivered to the General Manager or left at the office of the General Manager and personal delivery is not required as a condition precedent and if the notice is left at the office of the General Manager in the hands of a responsible senior official of the office, both the letter and the spirit of the section must be deemed to have been complied with. In Lakshminarayan v. Union of India, AIR 1958 Pat 489, the suit was against the Union of India, in respect of a claim for non-delivery of goods by the East Indian Railway, and a notice under S.80 C.P.C. served on the management of the railway was held to be valid even though the notice was not served on the management of the South Indian Railway which was the despatching railway. In Governor-General in Council v. Sankarappa, AIR 1953 Mad 838, notice claiming damages for loss of goods in railway transit was sent to the Member-in-charge of the Railway Board and was forwarded by the Railway Board to the General Manager, M.S.M. Railway as the competent authority and it was held that the notice was a proper notice under S.80, C.P.C. In Dhian Singh Sobha Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1958 SC 274, the Supreme Court has held (at p. 275):-

"Though the terms of S.80 are to be strictly complied with, it does not mean that the terms of the notice should be scruti