HARI KANT JHA Vs. NATHU CHOUDHURY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Section 25, Small Cause Courts Act, impugning the judgment and decree of the Small Cause Court Judge of Darbhanga dismissing a suit brought by the petitioner for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 265 odd on the basis of a hand note said to have been executed on 12 Kartick 1334 Fasli by the opposite party in his favour.

(2.) The defence in the suit was that the hand note in question had been executed not in favour of the plaintiff, but in favour of his relation Ram Bahadur Jha and that it had been satisfied by the payment of a sum of Rs. 250 to Ram Bahadur Jha in Pagun 1346. The learned Small Cause. Court Judge after considering the evidence came to the conclusion that the defendants-had not taken any loan under the hand note in suit from the plaintiff, but they had taken a loan from Ram Bahadur Jha and the loan had been satisfied as alleged by the defendants. The learned Judge in discussing the evidence referred to certain minute discrepancies which, if they had stood alone, would not have been considered by me to be sufficient to warrant the dismissal of the plaintiff's suit.

(3.) Again, the finding of the learned Small Cause Court Judge that the hand note in question had not been executed in favour of the plaintiff but that certain blank papers containing the signature and the thumb impression of the defendants had been made over to Ram Bahadur Jha was also not sufficient to dispose of the suit because, as was pointed out in Hriday Singh V/s. Kailash Singh A.I.R. 1940 Pat. 377 , Section 20, Negotiable Instruments Act, gives general authority to a person to whom a stamped and signed paper is delivered to convert it into a negotiable instrument payable to any specified person and accordingly it is open to a person receiving a blank inchoate instrument to complete it in favour of any person besides himself. The principle underlying this decision is that the authority of a person to whom a stamped and signed paper is delivered to complete it in favour of another person cannot be challenged when the defendant himself chooses to send the instrument into the world in a form showing that the document is a hand note. But the matter does not rest there.