CHANDR KANTA HAZRA Vs. RAJANI KANTA DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Rule has been obtained by the plaintiff whose suit has been dismissed on appeal by the learned Additional District Judge of the Twenty-four parganas. The learned Munsif of Diamond Harbour decreed the same but the learned Additional Judge has held that it is barred by time.

(2.) It is alleged by the plaintiff that the defendants borrowed Rs. 200, from him on July 21, 1930, and that on the same date they executed a promissory note in his favour. The suit is on this promissory note, valued at Rs. 600, which includes the principal lent and the interest due at the date of the suit. The plaint was filed in Court on June 13, 1933, and if it was properly presented on that date it was within time, but there was a defect in the presentation of the plaint and how far the said defect is fatal to the plaintiff's claim was the controversy between the parties in the Courts below and is the controversy before me.

(3.) The plaint was filed by a Pleader, but it was accompanied by a printed form of a vakalatnama which the plaintiff had not signed. The filing Pleader signed his acceptance on the back of the vakalatnama. On or shortly after March 20,1934, somebody on the plaintiff's behalf discovered that the vakalatnama on the record was one which had not been signed by the plaintiff and between that date a May, 3, 1934, the records were tampered with, as is the finding of both the Courts below, and the plaintiff's signature on the vakalatnama was put in surreptitiously. On the discovery of the said defect the Court was not apprised of it, nor application was made to the Court praying for the supply (?) of the defect, but the plaintiff took the reprehensible course of working underground and when the tampering was detected, pursued the equally reprehensible course by seeking to maintain by evidence, which has been found to be perjured, the position that the signature of the plaintiff was on the vakalatnama from the beginning.