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TMI Blog1927 (10) TMI 1X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... l advantage to the insolvent estate, having regard to the extent of the liabilities. 2. The lands in Burma, which are the subject of these two consolidated suits in the District Court of Pegu, were acquired by a joint Hindu family of Nattukottai Chetties, a moneylending community residing with their families in what is now the Ramnad District in the south-east of the Madras Presidency, and carrying on business by their agents in other parts of India, Burma, the Straits Settlements and elsewhere. The family was known in Burma as the K.P. firm, these being the distinctive initials prefixed to all their business signatures according to the practice of the community. 3. In 1908 K.P. Ramanathan Chetty, a young man who had recently succeede ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s, of a payment of ₹ 2,500, and proceeded sir John to attach as the properties of the judgment-debtors the lands which had been conveyed to and were in possession of the first defendant. Finding, however, that the attachment proceedings must prove infructuous owing to the fact that the two senior members of the K.P. family had been adjudged insolvents on their own petition in January, 1918, in the Court of the District Judge of Ramanad at Madura, the plaintiff went over from Burma to Madura, and on October 19, 1919, presented a petition to the official assignee at Madura, alleging that the properties mentioned in a list annexed to the petition, containing some seventy-five items, had either been sold benami for the benefit of the inso ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... making further inquiry as to whether the insolvents had properties in Burma in the names of their agents, and inferred from the insignificant price which the official assignee accepted that he attached very little weight to the plaintiff's case that these valuable properties still formed part of the insolvents' estate. It seems difficult to resist this inference; but, however this may be, their Lordships desire to observe generally that it forms no part of the official assignee's duties as au officer of the Court charged with the realisation of insolvent estates either himself to prefer frivolous claims unsupported by reliable evidence or to transfer them to others and thus promote unnecessary and useless litigation. Further, s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ulently and collusively with a view to defeating the plaintiff's claim, and were invalid and inoperative. The plaint in the second suit was in similar terms and challenged the transfers made to the first defendant and by the first defendant to the second defendant, Singaram Chetty, the defendant in possession. The District Judge rejected all the plaintiffs contentions and dismissed both suits, holding, as already stated, on the admissions and the plaintiff's own evidence, that the allegation that the sales were benami was made by the plaintiff recklessly and without any foundation. 10. The plaintiff filed appeals from these decrees to the High Court at Rangoon, but did not make the first and second defendants in the first suit or ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nd the B.N.M.K. firm are made parties to the appeal. The purchase from the E.N.M.K. firm and the subsequent purchases in the first suit and the purchase from the first defendant in the second suit might stand on a different footing were there any evidence worthy of the name to show that they were made benami for the K.P. firm, because the first defendant and the E.N.M.K. firm would not be necessary parties as regards these issues, but this contention was not raised either in the Court below or before their Lordships, and may, therefore, be disregarded. 13. As regards the rest of the case, owing to the plaintiff's failure to make these defendants respondents within the time limited for filing an appeal, these appeals, so far as they a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nature of their interest, and this he has failed to do. 14. Their Lordships Eire, therefore, of opinion that the appellate Court were right in rejecting his application under, this rule. 15. The appellate Court was then asked to take action under Order XLI, Rule 38. That rule empowers an appellate Court to pass any decree and make any order which ought to have been passed or made, and to make or pass such further decree or order as the case may require, and provides, further, that this power may be exercised notwithstanding that the appeal is as to part only of the decree and may be exercised in favour of all or any of the respondents or parties, although such respondents or parties may not have filed any appeal or objection. 16. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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