MANGIPUDI VYAGRESWARUDU Vs. BODDAPATI BHADRAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners here were defendants, 2, 3 and 4 in a Small Cause suit on two promissory notes. The promisor was their father the first defendant. The first and second defendants were adjudged insolvents on 7 August, 1935. The adjudications were disputed in appeal and eventually the adjudication of the second defendant was cancelled and that of the first defendant was confirmed. During the period between the adjudication and the decision in the appeal, there were endorsements on the two promissory notes which are relied upon as acknowledgments saving limitation under Section 1.9 and Section 21(3)(b) of the Limitation Act. The Official Receiver was not a party to the suit and the suit as against the first defendant has therefore been dismissed.

(2.) It is argued in revision that the suit should also have been dismissed against defendants 2 to 4 on the ground that it is barred by limitation. The first defendant is admittedly the manager of the family and the debt is a family debt. The argument is that the acknowledgment made by the first defendant after he was adjudged an insolvent cannot save limitation as against the other coparceners on the ground that the manager's right of sale of the family properties to discharge a family debt incurred by him as manager vests in the Official Receiver. This argument rests on the assumption that the right to acknowledge the debt depends on the subsistence in the person acknowledging that debt of a power of sale of the properties against which the debt is to be enforced. It seems to me that this assumption is not correct. There would no doubt have been a certain logic in holding that when once a man is declared an insolvent, since his debts can only be claimed by proceedings in the insolvency against the properties vested in the Official Receiver, the Official Receiver alone would be the proper person to keep that debt alive. That is not however, the view which the Courts have taken. It has been repeatedly held that an acknowledgment by an insolvent in his schedule of liabilities filed after his adjudication is a good acknowledgment to keep alive a debt as against himself, notwithstanding the fact that all his properties at the time when this schedule is filed are vested in the Official Receiver who alone can sell those properties in order to discharge his debts. This power to acknowledge has been recognised as one which extends to the power of an insolvent father to bind his sons under the pious obligation theory--Vide Mohana Reddi v. Gangaraju (1941) 2 M.L.J. 311 (F.B.), I have not been referred to any case which has held that after the insolvency of the manager, the manager cannot acknowledge a debt binding the other coparceners as a family debt. And I can see no principle upon which such a result could be reached without throwing overboard the principles adopted by the Full Bench in Mohana Reddi V/s. Gangaraju (1941) 2 M.L.J. 311 (F.B.), If an insolvent after his adjudication can acknowledge his own debt, surely he can equally acknowledge a debt binding on the family of which he still remains the manager, notwithstanding his insolvency.

(3.) In this view, I dismiss the civil revision petition with costs.