In this appeal the appellant, who was the plaintiff’ in the suit, sought to recover damages on the ground that the defendants had maliciously and without reasonable and probable cause presented a petition in insolvency against him, as the result of which on 5th October, 1937, he was adjudicated insolvent. He says he was not able to obtain annulment of his adjudication until 21st February, 1944. Kunhi Raman, J., dismissed the suit holding in the first place that it was barred by limitation. He came also to the conclusion that want of reasonable and probable cause had not been satisfactorily proved. Even so he held that there was no evidence of malice and finally was of the opinion that the plaintiff on the evidence was entitled to no more than nominal damages.

The plaintiff has been pressed before us as a well-to-do man of the Chettiar community and of good character and reputation. It is stated that in a partition somewhere about 1933 between himself and his brothers he received as his share more than two lakhs of rupees. He took up residence in Madras and began speculating on the stock exchange. As he himself said in the course of the insolvency proceedings, his transactions were extravagant in the extreme and were in fact no more than rash speculations in differences. In the course of these transactions-he became concerned with two firms of stock-brokers, one called Ramlal and Company and the other Trojan and Company, the present respondents who are a registered firm still carrying on business in Second Line Beach, George Town, Madras. The sole proprietor of the firm today is one Annamalai Chettiar.

In April, 1937, there was something approaching a crisis on the Calcutta Stock Exchange in relation to certain shares in which there had been much heavy gambling. Trojan and Company, it has been proved beyond doubt, received private information from Calcutta, as the result of which they determined to get rid of their own holdings in those particular shares before the anticipated slump in them actually took place. To this end they fraudulently induced the plaintiff to buy 5000 Indian Iron shares pretending that they had purchased them in the normal way on the market. In fact, 1,800 of these shares belonged to Annamalai Chettiar, 1,000 to his wife and 1,000 to a firm of which Annamalai Chettiar and Company were managing agents. The rest of the shares belonged to persons who were close friends of Annamalai Chettiar. Trojan and Company charged the usual commission to the appellant. The above transaction which took place on 5th April, 1937, has been considered several times in this Court and a number of Judges have held, without hesitation, that Trojan and Company acted most unscrupulously and in gross fraud of the appellant who was their client and who acted on their advice.

The shares ultimately and inevitably dropped seriously in price and the appellant’s accounts with Trojan and Company showed as the result a debt against him to the extent of over a lakh of rupees. The appellant paid off some Rs. 60,000 leaving apparently due a balance of Rs. 51,7 12-7-0. Trojan and Company pressed him for payment and on 22nd May, 1937, he executed a promissory note in their favour, acting under the full belief that the transaction was perfectly above board. Trojan and Company then filed C.S. No. 151 of 1937 in the High Court in order to realise the amount alleged to be due as quickly as possible. They obtained an interim order of attachment before judgment on the appellant’s moveable and immoveable properties.

His transactions with the other firm also resulted in a heavy loss and with the pressure put on him to clear off his liabilities and believing that he was hopelessly involved financially, he foolishly attempted to alienate some of his properties, in particular a house in Madras which was then in process of building, to his wife and others. The other firm of brokers heard about the respondents’ attachment and of these alienati