RAJARAJESWARI AMMAL Vs. SSANKARANARAYANA AIYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of a suit filed by the first respondent in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Tinnevelly to recover a sum of Rs. 16,350-14-8 in respect of two promissory notes for Rs. 18,000 (Ex P-1) and Rs. 3,400 (Ex. P-3) respectively executed on 30 October, 1922 and 18 August 1927, by the father of the first defendant (the appellant before us) in favour of the second defendant. The plaintiff is the younger brother of the second defendant and the moneys due under the promissory notes belonged to the joint family of which they were members. There was a partition in 1929 and thereafter the plaintiff and the second defendant became each entitled to a moiety of the amounts due under the two promissory notes. On 28 June, 1943, the second defendant made an endorsement in favour of the plaintiff for half of the amount due in respect of each of the promissory notes. The plaintiff instituted the present suit on the 1 July, 1943.

(2.) In the trial Court there were two main defences : (1) discharge ; and (2) limitation. The first defendant pleaded certain payments of which endorsements were not to be found on the promissory notes but such payments were not proved in the Court below. Mr. Sitarama Rao, the learned Counsel for the appellant first defendant, has not challenged the correctness of the finding of the lower Court rejecting those payments.

(3.) He however pressed before us the plea of limitation. Though the promissory notes were of the years 1922 and 1927 respectively the plaintiff relied upon payments of interest and endorsements in acknowledgment of such payments made on the respective promissory notes. The last of such endorsements is dated 1 July, 1940, and the acknowledgment is in the handwriting of the zamin clerk of the first defendant's estate. It appears from a perusal of the two endorsements in question, namely, Ex. P-1(o) on the promissory note for Rs. 18,000 and Ex. P-3(n) on the promissory note for Rs. 3,400 that an obvious mistake had been committed in entering up the endorsements on the respective documents. The recitals show that the endorsement Ex. P-1(o) must have been made with reference to the promissory note, Ex. P-3 and the endorsement Ex. P-3(n) made in respect of the promissory note Ex. P-1. This is not seriously disputed by the learned Counsel for the first defendant but he contended that as each of the endorsements is expressed to have been made in respect of the particular promissory note on which the endorsement was made, there would not be a sufficient acknowledgment in writing within the meaning of the proviso to Section 20(1) of the Indian Limitation Act.