BISHUN CHAND Vs. GIRDHARI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal involves a question of general importance in regard to the law of limitation. The appellants carry on business as moneylenders, and for twenty-five years had been lending money to the respondents, the rate of interest being 10 annas per cent per mensem. The loans were entered in the appellants' books with charges for interest at intervals, and so also were the payments on account made by the respondents from time to time. The suit was brought as on an account stated evidenced by entries as below described in the appellants' ledger; it was stated to their Lordships that the ledger set out the various items of credit and debit. The appellants' books were not produced at the hearing of the appeal, though produced at the trial. At the foot of the page of the ledger on the debit side there was written by or on behalf of the appellants: " Balance due to be received after adjusting the account up to Kunwar Sudi 9 Sambat, 1982 (that is, 26 September 1925), Rs.16,043-8-9."

(2.) Below this entry was written in the writting of one of the respondents: " Balance due to be paid after adjusting the account up to Kunwar Sudi 9, Rs. 16,043-8-6:" This latter entry was signed by both respondents, who were both literate. The respondents pleaded that they merely signed in reliance on the word of the appellants and did not go into the accounts with them. They did not however give evidence before the Judge. The appellants gave evidence that the respondents had signed the entry ?after they had understood the account;" that "sometimes they would come for the purpose of making up accounts;" that after the respondents had signed the entry the appellants sent them a registered notice, whereupon they were asked by the respondents for time, but as in the end no payment was made, they brought the present suit. The appellants stated in evidence that the last loan granted the respondents was Rs.1,000 on 9 August 1921, and that the last acknowledgment of the accounts by the respondents previous to that sued upon was on 10 October 1921. It is clear that considerable payments, either on account of principal or interest or of both, were made between 1921 and 1925 : what these payments precisely were does not appear, nor is it possible for their Lordships, not having the appellants' books before them, to say to what extent the debts were barred by limitation-that is, apart from any question of an account stated. The respondents pleaded that "within three years from the date of institution of the suit"-that is, from 17 August 1927- they had neither contracted any debt from the appellants nor paid them any sum of money. It might be inferred, though not with certainty, that they could not have made the same assertion if the date taken had been the date at which they signed the entry in the ledger. In any case, their Lordships have no specific evidence on this point.

(3.) The Subordinate Judge accepted the appellants' evidence and found that there was in fact a settlement of account between the parties on 26 September 1925, so that the balance then struck became itself a debt which was to carry future interest at 10 annas per cent per mensem: he found that the respondents "satisfied themselves of the correctness of the balance before they signed the note." He accordingly gave judgment for the appellants, holding that there was an account stated within the meaning of Art. 64, Sch. 1, Lim. Act, 1908.