AYICHAMMAL KANNOLI CHATHUKUTTY Vs. NALPPADI CHEERUKUTTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff sued for the realisation of a sum of Rs. 350/- which he had lent to the defendant with interest. A promissory note also was executed by the defendant in favour of the plaintiff, but it was not sufficiently stamped. Therefore the suit was laid on the original cause of action. The defendant contended that a promissory note having been executed, the suit as based on the original cause of action cannot lie. The court below accepted this contention and dismissed the suit.

(2.) The finding of the Munsiff is "that the promissory note is in consideration of the loan and so the debt cannot be proved aliunde." The reason for this was stated to be that "the lending of the money and the taking of the promissory note are one and indivisible and the two cannot be separated as the plaintiff had attempted to do". What influenced the Munsiff was the circumstance, that the promissory note was contemporaneous with the loan. The question whether, when a promissory note is insufficiently stamped, a suit would lie on the original cause of action has given rise to a conflict of judicial opinion in the several High Courts and as observed by a division bench of the Rajasthan High Court in Champalal v. Saligram, AIR 1961 Rajasthan 235, it will be a fruitless task to endeavour to reconcile them. The Rajasthan High Court also observed thus:

(3.) Even on the above view, the plaintiff is not entitled to a decree for interest, as no agreement as to the rate of interest was pleaded, apart from what is contained in the promissory note. Champalal v. Saligram is also authority for this view. The decree is set aside and the case sent back for decision in the light of the observations made above. I do not order costs.