YADEVSA LAD Vs. NARAYANSA LAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff, who is the respondent in this Court, claimed that an account should be made of his dealings with the defendant from Sambat 1979-1983, i.e., from 1923 to 1927, and that the defendant should be ordered to pay him Rs. 1,300 or such sum as might be found due. The allegations in the plaint are as follows. Between 23rd January 1923 and 25th June 1925 the plaintiff deposited various sums amounting in all to Rs. 1,400 with the defendant with an express agreement that this money should carry compound interest at Re. 1 percent per mensem, and an implied agreement that the money should be returned on demand by the plaintiff. About Rs. 560 have been repaid. The defendant had a grocery shop from which the plaintiff used to buy goods on credit, and the defendant was allowed to deduct such amount as might be due on this account from the amount claimed in this suit. On 30th November 1927 the plaintiff met the defendant and went through the defendant's accounts. He found that the defendant had entered all the dealings in one khata, both the money account and the grocery account. They found that Rs. 1,117-8-0 was due to the plaintiff at the end of Sambat 1983 on the two accounts, and the defendant then agreed to execute a promissory note for whatever amount found due after making final accounts. The account remained undetermined just then because there was a dispute about an item of Rs. 30 claimed as rent of the cellar.

(2.) THE defendant admitted receipt of Rs. 1,100, not Rs. 1,400, from the plaintiff, but alleged that this was a loan and not a deposit. Both Courts have held that he received Rs. 1,400 as a loan. The defendant further alleged that the suit, which was filed on 10th July 1929 was barred by limitation, and that is the main question that now arises for decision. The plaintiff replied as follows: Plaintiff's claim is for rendition of account of the dealings between the parties since 1979 Sambat. Because the defendant has been crediting plaintiff's amounts in his bahi khatas year after year up to this date, and because he has credited the amounts of interest also from time to time to the plaintiff in the khata of interest and because he has thus undertaken the liability for the amounts due by him to the plaintiff, the suit is not barred by limitation.

(3.) THE period of limitation will therefore be three years from the date of the loan, and the suit is prima facie barred by limitation. The trial Court held that it must fail on this ground, but that decision was reversed on appeal. On 5th November 1926 the defendant credited Rs. 196 to the plaintiff's account as interest, and on 25th October 1927 ha credited a further amount of Rs. 120 as interest. On 30th November 1927 the parties went through the accounts and found that Rs. 1,117-8-0 was due to the plaintiff, Rs. 36-8-0 on the grocery accounts and Rs. 1,081 on the regular or money account. The calculation was made by the plaintiff on a sheet of paper, exhibited as P-1, and the figures Rs. 36-8-0 and Rs. 1,081, showing how the amount was divided, are in the handwriting of the defendant. The paper was not signed by either party. The plaintiff relies on Section 20, Lim. Act, the relevant part of which runs as follows: Where interest on a debt... is, before the expiration of the prescribed period, paid as such by the person liable to pay the debt... a fresh period of limitation shall be computed from the time when the payment was made.