In Re: Mohamed Din Buta (Bankruptcy Cause No. 74/1931) [1938] EACA 203 (1 January 1938)

## BANKRUPTCY JURISDICTION

## BEFORE SIR JOSEPH SHERIDAN, C. J.

## In re MOHAMED DIN BUTA Bankruptcy Cause No. 74/1931

Bankruptcy—Conditional discharge.

The debtor was adjudicated bankrupt in 1924, and was discharged on $15-10-27$ . On $8-10-31$ the debtor was again adjudicated bankrupt and on $15-2-38$ he applied for his discharge. The creditors did not oppose his application but the Official Receiver did oppose. The assets did not amount to Sh. 10 in the pound and there was no dividend for distribution amongst the unsecured creditors.

Held (24-3-38).—That the bankruptcy laws must be vindicated but the punish-<br>ment meted out to a bankrupt must not be vindictive, and in all the circumstances of the case the bankrupt would be sufficiently punished and the law vindicated by an order suspending his discharge for three years from the date of his application.

Schwartze (with him Trivedi) for the bankrupt, referred to In re Gaskell (1904 2 K. B. 478).

Fisher for the Official Receiver.

JUDGMENT.—This is an application for discharge by a bankrupt. It is urged on his behalf that I should grant him a discharge subject to a nominal period of waiting. The bankruptcy is not for a large sum especially when compared with a previous bankruptcy. As in that bankruptcy the creditors do not oppose the discharge. Possibly as Mr. Justice Pickering said in the previous bankruptcy the bankrupt has prevailed upon them by his weeping copiously. He gave me evidence of his capacity to do this as he gave Pickering J. I should think that it would be an ordinary accompaniment of bankruptcy or other difficulty in his case. The discharge is properly resisted by the Official Receiver as the bankrupt's record is not a creditable one. In the present bankruptcy his assets do not amount to Sh. 10 in the pound. There is in fact no dividend for distribution amongst his. ordinary creditors, he has not kept the statutory books of account and he was previously adjudicated bankrupt; securing his discharge therefrom, the learned Judge making the order with reluctance. He had also entered into composition schemes with his creditors on two occasions, one of those failing and leading to his final bankruptcy. For the bankrupt, it is to be said that his creditors have not opposed his discharge possibly recognizing his lack of business aptitude and being actuated by pity in the knowledge that he has to support a large family. He is not a trader in the ordinary sense in whose case the omission to keep books would be a more serious matter. On the one hand the bankruptcy laws must be vindicated and on the other the punishment meted out to him must not be vindictive. Bearing in mind that on the last occasion he was granted a discharge, I should not, I consider, refuse him a discharge absolutely. In all the circumstances of the case, he will be punished and the law sufficiently vindicated by an order suspending his discharge for three years from the date of his application.