LAKSHMAMMAL Vs. NARASIMHARAGHAVA AIYANGAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree given by Mr. Justice Wallis dismissing the plaintiff s suit on the ground that the two documents on which he relied had been materially altered and that for that reason the defendants were not liable thereon. The suit was brought on two instruments executed in Mysore by the father of the defendants the father being a resident in Mysore, in favour of the plaintiff who with her husband was also an inhabitant of Mysore. When the documents were put in evidence it was found that they had been torn and mutilated. The learned Judge declined to believe the story put forward by the plaintiff to account for the mutilation of the documents. I agree with the learned judge that this story could not be accepted. The effect of the mutilation was to cause the words " or order " to disappear from the two documents. There is very little direct evidence on this point, but the learned judge holds in effect that the missing words were " or order " or words to that effect and I take the same view. This was not in fact seriously contested by the plaintiff, and Mr. S. Srinivasa Aiyangar s argument proceeded on the assumption that the words " or order " were contained in the two documents, as they were originally executed. Mr. Justice Wallis held that the alterations were made with the obvious purpose of enabling these documents, which could not be sued upon, to be sued upon where it was expected that they would have to be sued upon, namely in Mysore. There was some discussion as to whether the documents in their original form were bonds or promissory notes. In the plaint they are described as bonds; but in the documents themselves they are described as promissory notes. As promissory notes they are insufficiently stamped; and whether or not in this state of things they could be sued upon in their original form in Madras, it seems clear that the insufficiency of a stamp would have been a fatal obstacle to their being sued on in Mysore.

(2.) I should be prepared to take the same view as the learned judge and to hold that the alterations were made in order that these documents could be sued upon in Mysore. If this is so, it seems to me absolutely clear that the alterations were material alterations, since they were made for the purpose of enabling the plaintiff to sue in a Court in which, if the alterations had not been made, she would not have been able to sue. They appear to me to be none the less material alterations because, the defendants at the time the suit was instituted being, as events turned out, residents in Madras for educational purposes, the plaintiff was able to institute her suit in this Court. In this view that alterations were made with the object of enabling the plaintiff to institute her suit in this Court, I am of opinion that the alterations are material and that the defendants are not liable on the documents.

(3.) In connection with this part of the case Mr. Srinivasa Aiyangar relied on a decision of this Court in Mahomed Rowthan v. Mahomed Husain Rowthan (1899) I.L.R. 22 M. 337 in which it was held that there was no provision of law which required a promissory note executed out of British India to be stamped before it was sued on or sued in a Court where the holder of the note had not done any of the acts referred to in Sections 5 and 18 of the Stamp Act, and in consequence the obligation to stamp had not arisen. Mr. Srinivasa Aiyangar s argument was that in as much as the defendants could be sued on the original documents in this Court without being met by the stamp objection the alteration made in the document for the purpose of enabling the plaintiff to sue in this Court was unnecessary, was made under a misapprehension, and that therefore the alteration of the documents was immaterial since a suit could have been brought in this Court either under the documents as they originally stood or in their altered form.