KRISHNA AIYAR Vs. PONNAPPA NADAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The 1 defendant agreed, on the 26 September 1919, to supply timber; and as a pledge for the due performance of his contract, and for repayment of Rs. 5,000 advanced to him he mortgaged certain property. Ex. A is the mortgage document. It describes itself as a karar or agreement and was stamped at first with an eight annas stamp. After it was presented for registration the deficient stamp duty and a penalty was collected and it was registered as a mortgage. The plaintiff sued upon this document and got a personal decree against the 1 defendant for Rs. 649 and a mortgage decree for the balance. The second defendant who appeals is a simple mortgagee Under another document which is Ex. I.

(2.) The point taken in appeal is that Ex. A regarded as a mortgage is defective as regards attestation because the attestors signed at the end of the document after the executant had signed and afterwards (apparently at the time of presentation for registration) the survey numbers of the items mortgaged (with one exception) were added. Then the executant again signed, but the attestors, though they were present, according to the evidence, and witnessed her signature, did not themselves repeat their act of signing. The document Ex. A is a peculiar one because it begins as an agreement; it goes on as if it was an enquitable mortgage with deposit of title deeds and it concludes as a simple mortgage in which the mortgagor and the property referred to are made liable for damages and for the balance that may be found due to the mortgagee.

(3.) It is argued that the addition of the survey numbers constituted a material alteration in the document and that, as the attestors did not affix their signatures to that alteration, the whole document is invalid. We have ascertained that one of the survey numbers, namely 36-2 has been omitted, that being the field to which document 2827 relates, This appears from Ex. I which also covers the same property and contains a ful description. The question is whether the addition of these survey numbers was such a material alteration of the document as to make in something different from what it was when it was first signed and attested. In the body of the document all the property which has been charged is described as the property contained in certain documents of which numbers are given and these documents are declared to be handed over to the mortgagee. It was, therefore, possible for the mortgagee or for anyone else, who had those documents in his hand to ascertain the survey number of each of the mortgaged items. I think that this is a case in which the maxim id certum est quod certum reddi protest applies. The document was complete as it stood after the executant and the attesting witnesses had signed. What was added was a further definition of the properties, probably made for the purpose of registration.