TULSI RAM Vs. RAM SARAN DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant sued upon a promissory note made by the respondent and he lost in the High Court the decree, which he had recovered at the trial. Curiously enough the main question is, whether he discharged the onus of proving that the note had been load without his default, so as to entitle him to give secondary evidence of its contents.

(2.) According to the practice, either the original note or a copy of it had to be attached to the plaint. It was stated, both in the plaint and in the list of documents accompanying it, that the note exhibited was the original. This was on February, 14, 1917. Next day the plaintiff's pleader received notice from the Court officials, that he must amend his list and pay a further process fee. He went to the office to make these defects good and, apparently, had access at least to the list of documents, if not to the other papers. Thereafter the officials, probably on the same day, served the defendant with the plaint and so gave him the opportunity of learning that the original document had been filed in Court, but what action he took thereon, if any, is matter of conjecture.

(3.) On March 1, 1917, an application by the plaintiff for attachment before judgment came before the District Judge. The defendant's pleader looked at the file and was heard by the plaintiff's pleader to say that the note was forged. On this the plaintiff's pleader also looked at the file, and at once applied to the judge, saying that the original note had been abstracted and a false one substituted and asking him to hold an inquiry into the circumstances of this change. The District Judge then examined sundry officials but the result was negative; for they did not incriminate either themselves or one another. When the trial came on the plaintiff's pleader asked to be allowed to put in, as secondary evidence of the note, a photograph of it taken some little time before, and, as his statement was accepted that he filed the original with the plaint and had nothing to do with the substitution, the photograph was let in Witnesses were then called on both sides. The defendant did not deny that he had made a note for the alleged amount, Rs. 8,000, but he said that it contained no provision for interest. The photograph concluded with the words "with interest @ Rs. 5/-p. c. p.m." The words "with interest" appear from the photograph to have been written by the same hand as the rest of the body of the note, but at a later time and in part of the space originally left for the stamp and the signature, and the letters " @ Rs. 5/- p.c. p.m." seem to have been written at the same time as the body of the note and by the same hand cwrrente calamo. In the event the trial Judge found for the genuineness of the note as shown in the photograph and gave a decree for the amount of the principal, but reduced the interest from the exorbitant rate of 6O per cent, to a mere 6 per cent, per annum.