High Court Madras High Court

Rai Bahadur P.V. Srinivasa Rao … vs Yeruva Chinnapa Reddi on 28 August, 1935

Madras High Court
Rai Bahadur P.V. Srinivasa Rao … vs Yeruva Chinnapa Reddi on 28 August, 1935
Equivalent citations: (1935) 69 MLJ 839


JUDGMENT

1. This arises out of an application to strike out the respondent’s name from the list of creditors of an insolvent. The debts shown in the schedule as owed to the Respondent are numerous. One of those debts has, after annulment (an annulment that was followed by an order vesting the insolvent’s property in a Receiver for the benefit of creditors) been the subject matter of a suit to which the Receiver was made a party and to which the insolvent was the principal defendant. That suit ended in a decree giving to the plaintiff the right to attach the assets of the insolvent in the hands of the Receiver.

2. Having that in mind the learned District Judge has treated it as a matter of res judicata that all the debts and not merely the subject matter of that suit, were owing. He has not gone at all into the question whether the other debts were not true debts.

3. It will therefore have to go back for a determination whether the debts, other than the debts the subject matter of the suit should or should not be expunged.

4. It has been urged that the Receiver has now no power to raise this question and Veerayya v. Srinivasa Rao (1935) 69 M.L.J. 364 is cited in support. We are, however, clearly of the opinion that after annulment the Officer of the Court in whose hands the assets are vested for the benefit of the creditors has the right, and indeed the duty, to bring to the attention of the Court, facts which show that persons appearing in the list of creditors are, not in fact creditors. This is not invalidating the act of the Official Receiver in admitting a debt. It is part and parcel of the necessary steps that must be taken for the proper administration of the assets with which he is charged. He has this-power as any other Receiver would have it, and quite apart from any express statutory provision.

5. Remanded accordingly for disposal on the merits as to the debts other than the debts the subject matter of the suit O.S. No. 19 of 1928 (on the file of the Sub-Court, Guntur). Costs will abide the event.