BRINDABAN CHANDRA GHOSH Vs. DAMODAR PRASAD PANDAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are applications for review of a judgment delivered by us on 10 May, 1923. The facts of the suits are stilted in our judgment. It is convenient, however, to mention here that the plaintiffs were mortgagees and the defendants wore the sons of the mortgagor and governed by Mitakshara law: the lower Courts had decreed the suits in part, that is, to the extent that the principal secured by the mortgage corresponded with the debt due on a prior mortgage. The defendants as appellants urged that the prior mortgage was not an "antecedent debt," and they were not liable under the mortgages executed by their father in favour of the plaintiffs. We upheld that contention in the belief that the decision of their Lordships of the Privy Council in the case of Sahu Ram Chandra V/s. Bhup Singh A.I.R. 1917 P.C. 61 compelled us to do so.

(2.) This application for review was presented on 4 August, and as I was away at the time it could not be dealt with until after the vacation. On 20 November, we adjourned the hearing. On 14 November, their Lordships of the Privy Council delivered judgment in the case of Brij Narain Rai V/s. Mongla Prasad A.I.R. 1924 P.C. 50; this was published in India in January and appeared in the Calcutta Weekly Notes on 14 January. When we heard the application for review on 1 February, this later judgment was before us, and we called on the defendants to show cause why in view of that judgment our decision should not be reversed.

(3.) Without going into an examination of the differences between the judgment in Sahu Ram's case A.I.R. 1917 P.C. 61 and the judgment in Brij Narain's case A.I.R. 1924 P.C. 50. I think it is enough to say that the circumstances in which we have to deal with this application are altogether unusual.