The central legal point established is that in stock exchange transactions, the involvement of a broker creates a strong presumption against the existence of a common intention to wager, and the defense of gaming transaction can fail based on the understanding and nature of the transactions.

Mockett, J.

1. The plaintiffs are a firm of stockbrokers carrying on business in Madras. They are Nattukottai Chetties; and so is the defendant. The plaintiffs sue for moneys due to them from the defendant arising out of a course of dealings, beginning in December, 1934 and ending in March, 1935. The dealings concern Government promissory notes mill shares and silver. The defence of the defendant is that this money is irrecoverable, it being a gaming transaction and therefore within the mischief of Section 30 of the Contract Act. It seems to me that the first thing that I have to do is to discuss the nature of the transactions and the relations of the parties to each other and find definitely what those relations were and what the transactions were. Personally I have not any doubt in my mind about the true facts. The defendant pleads that he (a resident of Pallathur which is quite near to the village from which the plaintiffs come) entered into an arrangement with them by which dealings should take place in stocks, shares and securities, but that those dealings should be so arranged that the defendant should have to pay differences only and should not be expected to take delivery or what is known as to take up stocks or shares concerned. He says that he arranged that, with Mr. Palaniappa Chetty, a partner of the firm. That I may say is denied by Mr. Palaniappa Chetty who wants me to believe that he entered into dealings, and considerable dealings, with the defendant in this case purely on the strength of enquiries he made from persons in Madras, enquiries directed towards the financial state of the defendant. My own view is that that story is not true. I am prepared to accept the defendants story that there was some arrangement or understanding at least with the plaintiffs as to the course of business between them and my reasons are as follows. I do not believe that a firm such as the plaintiffs firm would at a few hours notice enter into transactions with a man about whom they knew nothing. They must have known nothing because the first order is dated 11th December 1934, and we find them replying the next day, the 12th December, and it is extremely unlikely that satisfactory enquiries would have been possible in such a short time. Moreover, the tone of the correspondence suggests some previous arrangement. A first order usually meets with some form of comment or something to suggest that it was the beginning of dealings and a welcome to, a new client. There is nothing of that sort here. I think there was an arrangement between the plaintiffs and the defendant by which the defendant intimated that he did not intend to pay anything more than differences, namely, that he was not prepared to take delivery of shares but to pay up differences only. There is another reason why I believe that story. The defendant, is obviously a man of very little means, but I think he is better off than he thinks he is. According to his own admission he would be good for about Rs. 5,000 at least because he has got a share in a house worth that money and I think it is very probable that it is worth more because his attitude here is to make his means as small as possible. That probabilises the fact that the plaintiffs were prepared to enter into a transaction for differences only. I am afraid I cannot accept that they made enquiries and found him worth half a lakh of rupees. They never found any source for that information and it does not appear to-day that it is possible for them to produce any material before me to show that such information was ever before them. But in my opinion it was totally unnecessary for the plaintiffs to take up this attitude because I think that this was a very ordinary stock exchange transaction. One is entitled sitting here as a judge of fact to have at least as much intelligence as a juryman and one knows perfectly well that there is a great deal of gambling on the stock exchange and that that is not limited to an