An agent must perform duties faithfully to be entitled to commission, and the agent's claim for remuneration may be barred by limitation.

Yaradachariar, J.

1. This second appeal arises out of a suit for accounts between principal and agent. The final decree of the trial Court directed the defendant to pay a substantial amount to the plaintiff as a result of the taking of the account. On appeal by the defendant, the lower Appellate Court set aside that decree and directed the plaintiff to pay the defendant a sum of Rs. 3780 odd and also pay the defendants costs including the court-fee payable to Government on the memorandum of appeal to the lower Court. It is against this latter decree that the plaintiff has preferred this second appeal. The defendant was adjudged an insolvent during the pendency of the appeal in the lower Court and the Official Receiver has continued the proceedings as representing the defendants estate.

2. According to the plaint, the claim for account arose out of an agency constituted in March 1911 by a power of attorney marked Ex. A. But in substance the agency goes back to an earlier date. During the plaintiffs minority, a bond for Rs. 90,000 had been executed in his favour by two persons, a lady named Jumna Bai and a minor named Sethuram. The plaintiff and his mother who was his guardian were residents of Baroda but the executants of the bond were residing in South India. When it became necessary to institute a suit to recover the money due under that bond, the defendants father was constituted agent by the plaintiffs mother and put in charge of the litigation. The suit was instituted in 1904, but even while it was pending before the trial Court, the defendants father died and the evidence shows that the defendant attended to the subsequent stages of the trial till judgment was delivered by the trial Court in January 1906. We have not got the power of attorney or any formal document under which the defendant was appointed agent during the pendency of the suit in the trial Court. The only documentary evidence we have relating to this period is Ex. 1, dated 6th July 1906 wherein reference is made to the services rendered by the defendants father and by the defendant in connexion with the suit and it is stated that the plaintiffs mother had agreed to pay a sum of Rs. 1500 by way of remuneration for the conduct of the suit; a period of two years was fixed by that document for payment of the amount. As the parties anticipated further proceedings in the suit, both by way of a possible appeal by the other side and by way of necessary proceedings in execution of the trial Courts decree, a further agreement was come to between the defendant and the plaintiffs mother acting on the plaintiffs behalf; this is evidenced by Ex. 2 which bears the same date as Ex 1. The defendant presumably acted under this arrangement for the rest of the litigation but when the plaintiff attained majority in October 1910, it was apparently thought more regular to have a power of attorney executed by the plaintiff in the defendants favour (see Ex. A). The plaintiff instituted this suit on the basis that the agency was constituted by this document, but in the circumstances it seems to us more reasonable to hold that the agency really began under Ex. 2 and that the plaintiff merely adopted it and continued it by the execution of Ex. A.

3. We shall refer to the provisions of Ex. 2 in detail in due course. It is sufficient at this stage to say that it required the defendant to attend to the conduct of the possible appeal in the High Court as also to the conduct of the proceedings in execution of the trial Courts decree. The High Court pronounced judgment on 29th July 1910 varying the decree of the lower Court to this extent, namely whereas the lower Court had passed a decree against both the executants of Ex. A, the High Court confirmed the decree as against Jumna Bai and dismissed the suit as against Sethuram. The result was that an appeal was taken to the Privy Council by Jumna Bai and an appeal was also taken to the Privy Council by the plaintiff against so much of th