MUDIVARTHI SREEMANNARAYANA Vs. MANCHIKALAPATI SITARAMAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant is the revision Petitioner. On October 16, 1954, the suit giving rise to this Revision Petition was filed claiming the sum of Rs. 452-9-4 with interest thereon at the rate of 5 1/2 per cent per annum.

(2.) The allegations in the plaint are that the amount claimed was the balance of the principal and interest due on the pronote executed by the revision petitioner in favour of the claimant on March 11, 1951. As the date of the plaint is beyond three years of the pronote a Bank draft for Rs. 600 which is dated April 15, 1952, was set up as saving limitation. The defence is three-fold. One is about the suit note not being supported by consideration. The next is about the draft payment not being towards the suit note. The third is the pronote being executed nominally on expectation of the plaintiff sending paddy to the executant's place which was not done. The Small Causes Court has decreed the plaint and the learned advocate of the revision petitioner has urged the point of limitation as the only ground for allowing this petition.

(3.) The lower Court has relied on authorities laying down that cheques constitute payment for purposes of saving limitation under section 20 of the Limitation Act. It has found that there is no substantial difference between cheque and draft by Bank and therefore the claim to recover the balance of the pronote which was in 1951 is saved by the draft which is in 1952. The counsel for the revision petitioner has pressed before me the obvious difference between a draft by a Bank and a cheque. Admittedly a cheque bears signature of the debtor, whereas a Bank draft generally has no such signature, because of the absence of signature on the latter it would be difficult to treat payment through Bank draft as acknowledgement of debt within the proviso to section 20 which reads as follows: