Dawson-Miller, C.J:— This is an appeal by the plaintiff from a decision of the Additional Subordinate Judge of Purulia dated 18th December, 1916, in a suit instituted against the District Board of Manbhum and the Commissioners of the Purulia Municipality, claiming damages for personal injury alleged to have been caused by the negligence and breach of duty of one or both of the defendants. According to the plaintiff's case, as alleged in the plaint, he was driving along the Indigo Factory Board at Purulia where he resided taking a friend to the railway Station at about 6 o'clock in the morning on 5th August, 1915. Whilst so doing in order to avoid a collision with a ticca gharry, which was approaching from the opposite direction, he took his trap to the left side of the road with the result that the left wheel of the trap struck against a heap of road gravel which was lying on that side and owing to the impact the plaintiff was thrown to the ground and suffered a compound fracture of the right leg. After being treated at the local hospital, where he was attended by the Civil Surgeon he was taken to his own bungalow a few days later. At first the injury was not considered to be of a very serious nature but later on complications supervened, and on 24th September under medical advice he was removed to Calcutta for further treatment and on 7th October following it became necessary to amputate his leg below the knee.

2. Being uncertain whether the District Board of Manbhum which we are told was the rural authority or the Municipality of Purulia which is apparently the urban authority was responsible for the upkeep and repair of the road where the accident happened he made them both defendants to the present suit which was instituted on 6th January, 1916, and he claims one lakh of rupees as damages against the defendants or such of them as may be found liable. Bach of the defendants appeared and filed a written statement setting up various pleas in defence. Each of them also sets up a plea in bar by limitation under the provisions of certain Acts of the Bengal Legislative Council requiring, as they contend suits of this nature to be brought within three months of the date when the cause of action accrued. The Act relied on by the Manbhum District Board (defendant 1) is the Bengal Local Self-government Act, 1385, S. 146 of which provides that:

“No suit shall be brought against the members of any District Board, Local Board or Union Committee, or any of their officers or any person acting under their direction for anything done under this Act, until the expiration of one month next after notice in writing has been delivered or left at the office of such Board, or Committee and also (if the suit is intended to be brought against any officer of the said Board or Committee or any person acting under their direction) at the place of abode of the person against whom such suit is intended to be brought stating the cause of action, and the name and place of abode of the person who intend to bring a suits. Every such action shall he commenced within three months next after the accrual of the cause of action and not afterwards.”

3. The Act relied on by the Purulia Municipality is the Bengal Municipal Act, 1884, S. 363 of which provides that:

“No suit shall be brought against the Commissioners of any Municipality or any of their officers or any person acting under their direction for anything done under this Act until the expiration of one month next after notice in writing has been delivered or left at the office of such Commissioners.”

and proceeds in exactly the same form as the Act of 1885 just quoted, the words “such Commissioners” taking the place of the words “such Board or Committee” is the other Act.

4. Several issues were framed in the suit, the fourth of which raised the question whether the claim was barred by limitation under the provisions of the section quoted. The case came on for trial before the Additional Subordinate Judge on 18th December, 1916, and, at the request of the defendants, the learned Judge proceeded to decide the question of limitation first, as, in the event of the plea being upheld, it would be unnecessary to decide the other issues in the case, he came to the conclusion that the acts complained of on the part of the defendants came within the purview of the two sections relied on. He further found that the cause of action arose on the 5th August when the accident had happened, and that no fresh cause of action accrued on the 7th October when it became necessary to amputate the plaintiff's leg, and that the suit not having been brought until after the expiry of three months from the earlier date it was barred by limitation. From this decision the plaintiff has appealed. He contends, first, that the negligence or breach of duty of the defendants was not anything done under the provisions of the two Acts in question and that, this being a question of fact, ought to be determined before it can be held that the case comes within the operation of the sections. Secondly, he contended that the of cause of action for the present suit in which he claimed damages for the loss of his leg arose not on the 5th August, but on the 7th October when the leg was amputated, and that, in any case, if the cause of action arose on the earlier date giving him a right to claim for actual and contingent damage including the loss of his limb, nevertheless a fresh cause of action arose when that contingency in fact occurred. Thirdly, he contended, although this point was not raised in the Court below, that Section 146 of the Local Self-Government Act, did not apply to a suit brought against the District Board as an incorporated body but to a suit brought against the members of any District Board in their personal capacity and was, therefore, no bar to the present suit.

5. For the purpose of deciding this preliminary question it must be assumed that the allegations in the plaint are accurate. With regard to the first point, the plaintiff contends that the negligence alleged against the defendants giving rise to his cause of action is not necessarily negligence arising in the performance of something done under the Acts in question, and that, before it can be held that the section applies it must be determined whether the acts complained of were in fact acts done under the powers conferred by the statute. It is necessary therefore to examine the plaint in order to sea how the plaintiff's case is framed. After stating the facts I have already referred to, he pleads in para. 12 of the plaint that:

“the plaintiff has further been informed that the heap of road gravel had been negligently stacked there and allowed to remain there causing a considerable encroachment on the road itself and as it was not removed but allowed to remain for several months it became a compact mass hard enough to throw off the wheel that came in contact with it and the plaintiff was thus thrown off his trap and fell down on the road.”

6. Paragraph 13 reads:

“That the plaintiff believes that the defendants had no right to leave the gravel on the road causing thereby a considerable encroachment on the same and that it was their duty not to stack the said heap on the road and, at any rate, to remove the same after it was no longer required and if the same had been removed there would not have been any such accident and the plaintiff would not have met with the serious injury that has been caused to him.”

7. Paragraph 14 reads:

“That the plaintiff has not been able to ascertain which of the two defendants collected the heap on the road or was bound to remove the same so as to allow the entire width of the road to be used as such, but he believes that one of the defendants, if not both, was bound to do the same and he is entitled to his damage from either of the defendants or both.”

8. The first observation I wish to make upon this form of pleading is that it is not in accordance with the provisions of O. 6, R. 2 of the CPC, relating to the manner in which the facts relied on shall be pleaded. That rule provides that:

“Every pleading shall contain, and contain only, a statement in a concise form of the material facts on which the party pleading relies for his claim or defence, as the case may be, but not the evidence by which they are to be proved.”

9. The paragraphs in the plaint to which I have just referred are hardly statements of fact at all, except in so far as the plaintiff's state of mind or belief is concerned which is not material in a pleading of matters of this sort and is, if anything, merely evidence. I will assume, however, that what is stated as the plaintiff's information and belief is meant to be stated as an allegation of fact. Even then, however it is nowhere alleged that the defendants or either of them stacked the gravel or caused it to be stacked on the road. In fact, the plaintiff alleges in para. 14 that he has not been able to ascertain which of them collected the heap on the road or was bound to remove it, but he believes that one of the defendants, if not both, were bound to do so and that he is entitled to damages. It is clear therefore that the negligence relied on in the plaint is the failure of the defendants to remove the obstruction which had been negligently placed there by some body unknown, and as it was the duty of one or both of them to remove it they have failed in this duty, which is the negligence complained of. Now, it is manifest that the only duty imposed upon the defendants in connexion with the road is that arising out of the statutes themselves and it is the omission to perform this duty which gives rise to the cause of action. The words used in the sections relied on by the defendants are “anything done under this Act,” and where the words in a statute used in connexion with an offence or a civil wrong refer to acts done they must be held to extend also to illegal omissions (see Section 4(2) of the Bihar and Orissa General Clauses Act, 1917), and it is this omission which arises under the statute, or not at all, which is complained of. In my opinion, it must be taken that the negligence relied on by the plaintiff comes within the purview of the sections mentioned.

10. The second question is, whether a fresh cause of action arose when the plaintiff's leg was amputated. I am unable to assent to the proposition that, where personal injuries are occasioned by a negligent act of the defendant a fresh cause of action arises whenever the damage suffered becomes aggravated. It is well settled that the plaintiff in such a case is entitled to compensation not only for damage actually visible at the time when the suit is instituted, or at the time of the trial but even for such consequential damage as may reasonably be expected to arise in the future from the wrongful act complained of. Had the plaintiff instituted the present suit and brought it to trial before the 7th October he would have been entitled to claim both for present and prospective damages arising from the injury and if, subsequently, it became necessary to amputate his leg a fresh suit for damages would not have been maintainable. This arises from the maxim nemo debet his vexari pro una et eadem causa and it follows that, if a fresh cause of action arose upon a subsequent loss of the injured limb, his further suit would not be barred. This was decided as long ago as the reign of William 3: see Fetter v. Beal(1), where it was decided that the plaintiff who had sued the defendant for assault and battery and recovered a sum of £11, could not afterwards bring a fresh suit on the ground that subsequently part of his skull had come out of his head by reason of the battery.

11. It was contended on his behalf that the recovery in the former action was only for the bruise and battery, but that; here there was a mayhem by the loss of the skull giving a fresh cause of action, but this contention was rejected by the Court on the ground that the jury, in the former action, considered the nature of the wound and gave damages for all the damages that it had done to the plaintiff. In Hodsoll v. Stallebrass(2), Littledale, J., observed with respect to an action by a master for beating his servant per quod servitium amisit;

“It is argued that a fresh action might he brought from time to time; but that is not so, the action being founded not upon the damage only, but upon the unlawful act, and the damage. Without the special damage this action ‘would not be maintainable at the plaintiff's suit. A fresh action could not be brought unless there were both a new unlawful act and fresh damage.”

12. In the present case although there was aggravated damage and possibly fresh damage, there was no new unlawful act. If the plaintiff's contention be accepted it would logically follow that in many cases a new cause of action would arise every day after the injury was received. If a person were deprived of his arm, and were thereby prevented from following his occupation of a musician, he would each day suffer further loss by reason of diminished earnings in that profession and he might not be able to follow any other. But it cannot be contended that a fresh cause of action arose each day. The plaintiff relied on the case of Darley Main Colliery Co. v. Mithcell(3), where the House of Lords held that the lessees of coal under the plaintiff's land were liable for subsidence of the plaintiff's land caused by lack of support owing to the defendants working a mine, although the plaintiff had recovered damages for a previous subsidence some 12 years earlier, and the defendants had ceased working the mine since the earlier date. The second subsidence was not a further development of the first. It was in a different part of the plaintiff's land. Their Lordships held that, in such a case the cause of action was not complete until the damage actually occurred, but Lord Halsbury in his speech was careful to point out:

“No one will think of disputing the proposition that for one cause of action you must recover all damages incident to it by law once and for ever. A house that has received a shock may not at once show all the damage done to it, but it is damaged nonetheless then to the extent that it is damaged, and the fact that the damage only manifests itself later on by stages does not alter the fact that the damage is there;, and so of the more complex mechanism of the human frame, the damage is done in a railway accident, the whole machinery is injured though it may escape the eye or even the consciousness of the sufferer at the time: the later stages of suffering are but the manifestations of the original damage done, and consequent upon the injury originally sustained.”

13. Lord Bramwell, in the same case observes:

“It is a rule that when a thing directly wrongful in itself is done to a man, in itself a cause of action, he must, if he sues in respect of it, do so once and for all. As, if he is beaten or wounded, if he sues he must sue for all his damage, past, present and future, certain and contingent. He cannot maintain an action for a broken aim and subsequently for a broken rib though he did not know of it when he commenced his first action.”

14. In the case before their Lordships House the cause of action was not complete until the damage was actually done, the lack of support was not in itself a matter which gave rise to a cause of action but it was this lack of support coupled with the injury sustained thereby. As Lord Fitz-Gerald in his speech stated:

“There was a complete cause of action is 1868 in respect of which compensation was given but there was a liability to further disturbance. The defendants permitted the state of things to continue without taking any steps to prevent the occurrence of any future injury A fresh subsidence took place, causing a new and further disturbance of the plaintiff's enjoyment which gave him a new and distinct cause of action.”

15. In cases such as that of the Darley Main Colliery Co., the cause of action does not arise until actual damage ensues and it is for that damage only that the suit is maintainable, but in cases of personal injury a fresh cause of action does not arise by reason of the mere aggravation of the original injury and without any further wrong on the part of the defendant. If the plaintiff should suffer a fresh injury by a subsequent collision with the same heap of gravel, assuming the defendants to be liable at all, a fresh cause of action would arise but in the case before us the amputation of the limb was merely a development of the original injury the cause of action for which arose at the time when the injury was suffered.

16. The plaintiff contended that in the present case, as no previous suit had been brought, he could found his action upon the loss of his leg by amputation on 7th October and that the maxim nemo debet his vexari had no application. The maxim however is based upon the hypothesis that a fresh cause of action does not arise in such cases and this is in accordance with the decision in Carey v. Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey(4). Reliance was placed by the plaintiff upon Section 24 of the Limitation Act but, in my opinion, that section has no application to the circumstances of the present case. The question is, when did the cause of action arise, and that question I have already dealt with. The illustration to that section also seems clearly to show the class of cases which the legislature had in contemplation. Upon this part of the case, I think, the plaintiff's contention must fail.

17. The third point taken by the appellant was not urged in the Court below, but, as it depends upon the construction of the statute it is open to the appellant to raise it here. It is admitted that it only applies in the case of the District Board of Manbhum as it is conceded that an action against the Municipality is covered by Section 363 of the Bengal Municipal Act, 1884. In that Act, S. 29 provides that:

“The Commissioners shall, in the name of their Chairman, by the description of ‘The Chairman of the Municipal Commissioners of ……’ be a body corporate, and have perpetual succession and a common seal, and in such name shall sue and be sued,”

and the Act throughout in speaking of the body so incorporated refers to it as the Commissioners. In the Bengal Local Self-Government Act of 1885, however the matter stands differently. By S. 20 of that Act it is provided that:

“Every District Board shall be a body corporate by the name of ‘the District Board of (name of district)’ and shall have perpetual succession and a common seal, with power to acquire and hold property, both moveable and immovable, and, subject to any rules made by the Lieutenant-Governor under this Act, to transfer any such property held by it, and to contract and do all other things necessary for the purposes of this Act, and may sue and be sued in its corporate name.”

18. Throughout the Act, when referring to the body so incorporated, it speaks of it as the “District Board” and not as the “members of the Board” and, when intending to refer to the members of the Board as individuals, it speaks of them as “members constituting the District Board” or in other terms apt to describe them: See S. 132-A., S. 142 contemplates certain kinds of suits against individual members of a Union Committee Local Board or District Board for loss, waste or misapplication of any money or other property belonging to the District Board Local, Board or Union Committee, and provides that such member shall not be liable unless the loss, waste or misapplication is a direct result of his negligence or misconduct while a member of one of these bodies. S. 146, which is the limitation section relied on by the defendants, the Manbhum District Board, provides that:

“No suit shall be brought against the members of any District Board, Local Board or Union Committee or any of their officers or any person acting under their direction for anything done, under this Act, etc., and that every such action shall be commenced within three months next after the accrual of the cause of action and not afterwards.”

19. It cannot be disputed that an action may be brought against some or all of the members of the District Board in their individual capacity and not as a body corporate and, in my opinion, it would be straining the language of the Act to interpret it as including a suit against the District Board which has a separate legal existence in the words “The members of any District Board.” It was urged before us by the respondent that the wording of the section indicates that a suit against the District Board was clearly contemplated as the section speaks of a suit not only against “the members of the Board,” but also against any of their officers or any person acting under their direction. It is argued that the officers and other persons there mentioned are the officers of the Board or persons acting under the direction of the Board and not of the individual members of the Board and that therefore the words “members of any District Board” must be taken to refer to the Board itself. It is also contended that it would be a strange result if a suit against the individual members were barred by this section whilst the Board itself was left without the privilege of that immunity. Whatever force there may be in this argument, I think we are bound to construe the words of the section in their plain and natural meaning, and where the Act throughout speaks of “the District Board” when intending to refer to that corporation and refers to a member or members of the Board or other local authority when intending to indicate them personally, I think it would be a straining of the language of the section to hold that the words there used were intended to indicate not what they say, namely, the members of the District Board, but the District Board itself as a separate legal entity.

20. I think that this appeal, in so far as it is against the District Board of Manbhum, should be allowed with costs of the appeal, and to this extent the decree of the lower Court should be varied. I do not think we should vary the order as to costs in the Court below as this point was not there raised. In so far as the appeal was against the Commissioners of the Purulia Municipality, it is dismissed with costs to those respondents.

21. Adami, J.:— I agree.

V.S/R.K

22. Appeal allowed.