The main and important point for consideration is whether the suit is barred under Article 30 or Article 31 of the Indian Limitation Act. The plaintiff’s suit was for recovery of the price of certain goods, namely, bales of cotton cloth which had been lost by the defendants who are common carriers during the course of the transit of the articles from Rajapalayam to Guntur. It is common ground that the goods in question were handed over to the South Indian Railway Company on 7th September, 1944, at Rajapalayam for despatch to Guntur. It is also proved beyond doubt that these goods reached the Tondiarpet Marshalling Yard in the Madras City on the midnight of 17th September, 1944, and that some time later the goods were lost. On enquiries made by the Railway Company, it was found that a gang of thieves had opened the wagon in the Yard and carried away the packages. Since the goods were not delivered at the destination to the plaintiff, who was the consignee of these goods, in proper time, the suit was for recovery of a sum of money, being the price of the goods as the damages for nondelivery of the goods. Exs. P-4 to P-22 are letters between the parties, by which the question of non-delivery was discussed. The substance of this correspondence is that the plaintiff had been writing to the 1st defendant for the payment of the compensation amount and the 1st defendant putting off the plaintiff’s claim by saying that the matter was under consideration. Though the first defendant knew as early as 20th September, 1944, that the goods were lost, the information to that effect was not passed on to the plaintiff and finally it was only on 20th September, 1945, the plaintiff was informed of the 1st defendant’s inability to deliver the good as per Ex.P.2. This date should be taken as the crucial date on which the impossibility of performance of the contract was made known to the plaintiff. The suit was filed on 1st August, 1946. The question therefore is whether the lower court is right in holding that the suit is not barred by limitation.

Article 30 of the first schedule to the Limitation Act contemplates cases where a suit is filed against a carrier for compensation for losing or injuring the goods and in the third column the time from which period has to begin is mentioned as when the loss or injury occurs. Article 31 contemplates a suit against a crarrier for compensation for non-delivery or delay in delivering the goods and the time for filing; the suit is one year from the date when the goods ought to be delivered. There has been a large body of case-law as to which of these articles has to be applied in the circumstances like the present, and the preponderance of authority in this court is to the effect that Article 31 is applicable. Therefore, what we have to see is what was the date when the goods ought to be delivered. As the learned Subordinate Judge finds, there is no date fixed on which the plaintiff was to be handed over the goods in question at Guntur and therefore the proper period should be when the plaintiff was informed that he could not be given the goods, and that was on 20th September, 1945. In Palanichami Nadar v. Governor-General of India in Council1, Yahya Ali, J., had to consider a similar case. The learned Judge, after considering the case-law on this topic, came to the conclusion that for a suit against a railway company for compensation for non-delivery of goods consigned for transit, time under Article 31 of the Limitation Act (period of one year from date when the goods ought to have been delivered) begins to run from after the definite refusal or declaration of inability to deliver by the responsible railway company. The learned judge followed two earlier decisions of this Court, namely, M and S.M.Railway v. Bhimappa2 and South Indian Railway Company v. Narayana Aiyer3. Very recently my learned brother, Mack, J., had also to consider this in Seetharama Sastri v. Hyderabad State4. In that particular cas