MAJETI VENKATALINGAM (DIED) AND OTHERS Vs. DASARI NARASANNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The simple point that is involved in this Civil Revision Petition is whether under the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act (Act IV of 1938) when a suit is brought on a debt contracted after the Act came into force, it is open to the Court granting the decree on the debt, to go behind the debt and trace it to a prior debt from which the present debt came into existence and applying Section 13 of the Act to the prior debt as well to grant relief on the footing. This very j issue was considered by a Division Bench of this High Court in Mellacheruvu Punderikakshudu v. Kuppa Venkatakrishna Sastri, 1957 ALT 22 . In that case the appellant sued the respondent for recovery of a sum of Rs. 1330/- on the foot of a promissory note dated 14-8-1948 for a sum of Rs. 1050/- repayable with interest at the rate of 9% per annum. That promissory note was executed in renewal of a prior promissory note dated 14-3-1945. The Court below held that there was no proof of the earlier borrowing than that evidenced by the promissory note dated 14-3-1945. Though the earlier promissory note was not produced in that case, the courts below fixed the principal of that promissory note by working, back and deducting from the sum of Rs. 1050/- due under the suit promissory note, interest over the statutory rate of 5 1/2% included therein and gave a decree for that amount. The question arose whether this was in order. After considering the various authorities bearing on the subject in issue in that case, His Lordship Chief Justice Subbarao came to the following conclusion:

(2.) Their Lordships further observed that:-

(3.) Their Lordship accordingly granted a decree for the amount covered by the suit promissory note TT that case with interest at 6?% simple, from the date of the promissory note upto the date of the decree and thereafter at 6% on the total amount till the date of realisation.