Konda Rm. Eswara Iyer And Sons And Ors. vs Madras Bangalore Transport Co. And Ors. on 19 November, 1963
It is true that the carrier should be satisfied about the identity of the person who produces the way bill this question will have to be approached, not in the abstract, but with reference to the facts and circumstances in each case. If there were grounds for suspecting the identity of the person, a need for verification arises. As already stated, the plaintiffs are a known firm to the defendants; they have been sending odd persons, known and unknown, including cartmen, to take delivery of the goods; they have been delivering the goods to such person and there was no occasion earlier to claim any loss in this regard. In the circumstances, therefore, by their presuming that the person who came with the original way bill was an authorised person, the defendants could not be said to have acted negligently or without due care or caution. In fact, we do not have any system of carrying identity cards and fraudulent people are always very clever and would pose themselves as the correct persons authorised. Therefore, unless there are other extraordinary circumstances which should have put the defendants on caution requiring them to take more precautions than that was normally expected, we could not say that they have acted negligently. Further, I have verified the original order in C.R.O. 937 of 1961, in the case reported in Easwara Iyer and Sons v. M. B. Transport Co., . I find that the defendant carrier in that case did not produce the original way bill against which he claimed that he has delivered the goods to the person not authorised by the plaintiffs therein. Only the delivery note signed by that third party acknowledging having taken delivery of the parcel was produced. This makes all the difference in considering the question whether the carrier has discharged his onus of proving that he was not negligent. The fact that the original way bill was produced for delivery of the goods, which is present in this case, makes all the differences or at least an important factor in considering the question of negligence. Though the plaintiffs alleged a criminal act or a conspiracy or a type of collusion between the employees of the defendants and the person who took delivery of the goods, that fact is denied in the evidence of D.W. 1, and no other circumstances has been made out even to create a suspicion of that nature. The defendants are a reputed company in Southern India and the plaintiffs themselves had no other occasion to complain of any collusion at any time before.