SOHAN PAL Vs. MUSATAFA HUSSAIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs in this suit sued to recover a sum of money alleged to have been deposited by Musammat Sakina Begam, who was the mother of plaintiffs Nos. 1 to 8, with the defendant in the year 1921. It is alleged that two deposits were made, a sum of Rs. 2,450 deposited directly by Musammat Sakina Begam and a sum of Rs. 550 deposited by Mustafa Hussain, plaintiff No. 1, and transferred to the account of his mother. The suit was decreed for the sum of Rs. 3,000 together with interest, and the appeal was dismissed by the learned District Judge of Aligarh.

(2.) In second appeal the only matter pressed is the point of limitation. The defendant-appellant claims that this sum should not be held to be a deposit but rather a loan and that as such it is barred by limitation. The courts below decided that the Art. of the Limitation Act which applied is Art. 60, and the appellant urges that rather Articles 57, 59 and 62 should beheld to apply. In our opinion the matter lies between Art. 59 and Art. 60. Reliance has been placed by the Counsel for the appellant on a decision of this Court in the case of Dharam Das v. Ganga Devi 29 A. 733 : 4 A.L.J. 628 : A.W.N. 1907; 263 where it was held that in India the ordinary dealings between a native banker and his customers are in the nature of loans made by the latter to the former. This judgment was pronounced in the year 1907 and the Indian Limitation Act of 1908 made it clear that deposits included money of a customer in the hands of his banker. The matter was considered again by a Bench of this Court in 1915 in the case of Juggi Lal v. Kishan Lal Mool Chand 28 Ind. Cas. 949 : 37 A. 292 : 13 A.L.J. 402 and that ruling is a clear authority for the view that in a case such as the present, the Article applicable is Art. 60 of the Limitation Act and not Art. 59. There is, in our opinion, no doubt whatever as to the nature of this transaction. It is clearly a deposit as held by the courts below and not a loan in the ordinary sense of the term.

(3.) We dismiss the appeal with costs.