RAM NARAYAN PANDEY Vs. KEDAR NATH TEWARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the defendants first party against the decision of a learned Single Judge of this Court modifying the decree passed by the trial court in a suit instituted by the plaintiffs (respondents 1 to 3) on foot of a mortgage bond for Rs. 4,000/-executed by defendant No. 1 in their favour on the 21st June 1948, with stipulation to pay interest at the rate of 70 maunds of paddy by kutcha weight per year. After giving credit for the value of paddy paid by the defendants in satisfaction of the interest for the first year, the plaintiffs laid their claim at Rs. 5,803/-

(2.) Among the plaintiffs, only Kedar Nath Tewary (Plaintiff No. 2) held a registration certificate (Ext. 6) dated the 4th March 1947 under the Bihar Money Lenders Act, 1938, entitling him to carry on money-lending business up to a limit of Rs. 5,000'-, and it was alleged in paragraph 6 of the plaint that the amount claimed in the suit belonged exclusively to plaintiff No. 2, but the names of the other, two plaintiffs were

(3.) Various pleas in defence were put for ward in their written statement by the contesting defendants 1 and 2; but it is necessary to mention only one of them, namely, that Section 4 of the Bihar Money Lenders (Regulation of Transactions) Act, 1939, is a bar to the maintainability of the suit, inasmuch as all the three plaintiffs have equal rights in the mortgage bond which is the basis of the suit, and that the plaintiffs have wrongly alleged in paragraph 6 of the plaint that the loan was advanced by plaintiff No. 2 only