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(3) The word 'loss' appearing in Section 72 of the Indian Railways Act must be given the wider meaning so as to include both loss to the railway as also loss to the owner and the object of the Act is not merely to protect railways but also to protect consigning public and the constructive loss such as non-delivery etc. should also be included in the word 'loss'.

6. The learned Judge then referred to certain rules of the Traffic Manual as also of the Audit Manual of the B.B. and C.I. Railway, particularly Rule 47 of Chapter II -- Goods of the Audit Manual, and purported to hold that the Junction Invoice having not been received at the Allahabad Railway Station upto the time of the delivery, the delivery clerk ought not to have parted with the Through Invoice and ought to have retained it for the purposes of comparing it with the railway receipts before effecting delivery of the consignment. He also observed that the Goods Clerk Atmaram ought to have looked at the railway receipts carefully as a prudent and ordinary man would have done while making delivery and that he was not justified in looking at the railway receipts only cursorily. It was further observed by him that when the Junction Invoice was not there, the delivery clerk ought to have taken particular care that the railway receipts were genuine in every respect and did not show any signs of having been tampered with or being bogus receipts, and this could only have been done had the delivery clerk cared to look at the Through Invoices and compared them with the railway receipts presented to him. The clerk concerned, he observed, was certainly guilty of negligence or dereliction of his duty in not looking at the railway receipts carefully. As to the nature of the forgery effected in the two railway receipts C.W.5/2 and C.W.6/1, the trial Judge on his own perusal of the two admittedly forged receipts and the genuine receipts noted that in the forged receipts there appears clear tampering in Railway Receipt C.W.5/2 at points C and E marked by him with red pencil and in the railway receipt C.W.6/1 there are big green and blue ink spots at four places. According to the trial Judge, these things apparently should have created suspicion in the mind of the delivery clerk even, if he had not cared to compare these railway receipts with the Through Invoices. He referred to the evidence of the two hand-writing experts, one produced by the plaintiffs and the other by the defendants, but did not record any definite opinion as to whose evidence is preferable and he based his decision on his own comparison of the forged railway receipts with the genuine railway receipts by observing that the forgeries were of such a nature that they could have been detected even by a layman on a proper scrutiny. In the result, the trial Judge recorded a definite conclusion that the suit goods were lost on account of the mis-delivery and the defendants' employees did not take due care as was required of them to take. Issue No. 2 was thus decided against the defendants.