MUNUSWAMI NAIDU Vs. KANNIAH NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE civil revision petitions have been instituted under Section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act (IX of 1887) against the judgment and decree of the learned District Munsif of Tiruvallur in four simple small cause suits be -fore him upon the foot of certain promissory notes. All these suits were dismissed by the learned District Munsif by means of a common judgment in which he held, upon the merits of evidence, that the suit promissory notes were not supported by consideration, that no cash was paid for them upon the occasion of their execution, and that, on the contrary, there was truth in the defence to these suits that they were executed, more Or less as a kind of collateral security, in a transaction between the defendants and one Gangadhara Naidu.

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the revision petitioners urges that there is a statutory presumption under Section 118 of the Negotiable Instruments Act that such documents were supported by consideration, and that the presumption is strengthened in the present case because the documents ex facie purport to be executed for cash consideration. Learned counsel urges that the failure to keep the presumption in mind, in the discussion of facts and probabilities by the court below, has affected the perspective of approach, and vitiated the decision. I have carefully considered this matter and I am unable to agree, for the important ground that, upon the facts, there was material justifying the inference of the court below that the suit promissory notes were not executed for cash consideration, as they purport to have been executed. It is not necessary for me to proceed into the particulars of evidence, but I would like to remark here that the scribe who spoke to these transactions (P. W. 1) had himself intimated in an earlier letter (Ex. A -9) that the suit promissory notes were not supported by cash consideration, and further that they were executed at the instance of Gangadhara Naidu referred to in the defence. Under those circumstances, the learned District Munsif came to the conclusion, after a discussion of the merits and probabilities, that the suit promissory notes were not supported by consideration and therefore that the suits did not lie.

(3.) ACCORDINGLY , since I see no reason to admit these petitions, in revision, they are dismissed in limine.