070-NLR-NLR-V-24-APPUHAMY-v.-FERNANDO.pdf
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Present : Ennis J.APPUHAMY v. FERNANDO.180—C. B. Chilaiv, 20,457.
Penan acting as pawnbroker without a licence—-Action for money lent—la contract void?—Pawnbrokers' Ordinance, Nar. 8 of 1898.
Plaintiff was convicted for acting as a pawnbroker without a.and was ordered to return the pledgee to the persons whogave them. He thereafter brought this action ifor recovery ofmoney lent.
Held, that the cootract was not void, and that the action wasmaintainable.
T W E f^ots are set Out in the judgment.
L. H. de Allots, for appellant.
September 22, 1922. Eknis J.—
This was an action for money lent.. It appears that the plaintiffhad acted as pawnbroker without taking & licence as required byOrdinance No. 8 of 1893. He was convicted on a breach of theOrdinance, and, I am told, by the order of the Commissioner thepledges were returned to the persons who gave them.
The broker thereupon brought the present action for the recoveryof money lent. -The learned Judge held that the contract betweenthe plaintiff and the defendant was a contract prohibited by Statute,'and was therefore a. void contract.
1 am unable to see anything in the Ordinance of 1893, .whichprohibits the contract. The learned Judge appears to have beenreferred to some old case based on section 25 of Ordinance No. 17of 1844. That section was repealed in 1865, and substantiallyre-enacted, and it was subsequently repealed by section 3 of .theOrdinance No. 8 of 1871, and it has not been re-enacted in any wayin the Ordinance No. 8 of 1893. The case cited ‘ to the learnedCommissioner, therefore, has no bearing on this case. The loan ofthe money was nowhere made illegal, and the plaintiff should havebeen given judgment.
I set aside the decree appealed from, and give judgment for theplaintiff, with costs, in the Court below and on appeal.
IMS.
Set aside.