Punjab Auto Agencies vs Rajinder Kumar Bansal
2000 Latest Caselaw 783 Del

JUDGMENT

Arun Kumar, J.

1. Plaintiff/respondent herein had filed a suit for recovery of Rs. 1,15,986/- against the defendant/appellant herein. The plaint was founded on the averment that the plaintiff had supplied certain automobile items to the appellant for which appellant did not make the payment. The defense of the appellant before the Trial Court was that appellant had made the entire payment of the bills in question to the respondent herein through Shri Ramesh Kumar Wahi who was representative of the plaintiff and used to collect the payments on his behalf. Learned Trial Court did not accept the plea of alleged payments made by the appellant to respondent herein through Shri Wahi and, therefore, decreed the Suit.

2. The main contention advanced by Shri D.R. Thadani, learned counsel for the appellant is that the Trial Court erred in not accepting the version of the appellant that payment was duly made to Shri Wahi who executed receipts for having received the amount and accordingly the payments should have been treated as made to the respondent since Shri Wahi was the representative of the respondent. It was also submitted that the said Shri Wahi had appeared as DW-2 and admitted that defendant had made payment of the amount of bills in question to him and he further deposed that he had paid the said amount so collected from the appellant to the respondent from time to time. Shri Thadani also led us through the evidence on record including the statement of Shri Wahi as DW-2. After considering the rival contentions and having perused the record, we are of the considered view that the learned Trial Court rightly disbelieved the statement of Shri Wahi. It has come on record that there is litigation between Shri Wahi and the respondent herein inasmuch as Shri Wahi has filed case against the respondent herein in the Labour Court alleging wrongful termination which is pending adjudication. Thus Shri Wahi was not on good terms with the respondent had his own axe to grind. It can further be seen from the record that Shri Wahi admits that he had no authority in writing to collect the money on behalf of the respondent. Moreover, even if it is presumed that he had oral authority to collect the money, nothing has come on record to show that he had paid the amount allegedly received by him from the appellant herein to the respondent inasmuch as he did not receive any payment so made to the respondent on behalf of the defendant. It is possible that the alleged receipts executed by Shri Wahi in favour of appellant may have been fabricated afterwards in order to create defense in this case. There is yet another factor which leads us to draw such an inference.-According to Shri Wahi even the sales tax forms (Ex. DW-2/39 to DW-2/41) were received by Shri Wahi from the appellant which were to be given to the respondent. However, admittedly, he did not deliver these sales tax forms to the respondent personally although he alleges that he had made cash payments to the respondent of the amount received by him from appellant. If the sales tax forms were collected by Shri Wahi from the appellant how he could retain the same and place on record of this case. This shows that these forms were also handed over to Shri Wahi at a later date for the purpose of present case only. In the circumstances, we find no merit in this appeal, which is, accordingly, dismissed.