MUTHU SASTRIGAL Vs. VISVANATHA PANDARASANNADHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff is the appellant in this Letters Patent Appeal. He sued on the strength of a letter which has been held to be inadmissible in evidence and his suit has been dismissed by all the Courts. I shall now briefly refer to the arguments advanced by his learned vakil and to some of the cases quoted during those arguments.

(2.) In the cases in the foot-note to Queen-Empress v. Somasundaram Chetti (1900) I.L.R., 23 Mad., 156 at pp. 156 and 157, and in Bharata Pisharodi v. Vasudevan Nambudri (1904) I.L.R., 27 Mad., 1 at p. 3(F.B.), relied on by him the documents themselves showed that they were not to be treated as vouchers or securities unless the persons to whom the letters were sent gave loans as requested in the letters, As said in Bharata Pisharodi v. Vasudevan Nambudri (1904) I.L.R., 27 Mad., 1 at p. 3(F.B.), "There is no unconditional undertaking on the face of the document to pay the money." In the present case the so-called varthamanam or letter says, "Amount of cash borrowed of you by me is Rs. 350. I shall in two weeks time, returning this sum of rupees three hundred and fifty with interest thereon at the rate of one rupee per cent, per month, get back this letter."

(3.) It is clearly an unconditional undertaking on the face of this document to repay borrowed money, and it is therefore a promissory note and Dot merely an offer to borrow or an acknowledgment of indebtedness.