SHEIKH MAHOMED Vs. JAMALUDDIN MAHOMED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suit, which has given rise to this second appeal, was for redemption of two mortgages, one of 1830 and the other of 1835 and was brought by the appellant after the right to redeem had prima, facie become barred under the statute of limitation. To bring the claim within the period prescribed by that statute the appellant relied upon certain statements contained in a document (Exhibit 88), as amounting to an acknowledgment within the meaning of Section 19 of the Limitation Act. The question of law now is whether Exhibit 88 contains such an acknowledgment.

(2.) It is necessary to state shortly the nature and purport of that Exhibit, so far as they are material for the purposes of that question. In 1882 the Settlement Officer had to determine under the Khoti Act the tenure on which the lands in dispute were held by their occupants, who were also mortgagors under the mortgages now concerned. Those occupants asserted their title to the lands as dhar karis and alleged that the evidence of that title was contained in certain books relating to the payment of assessment which, they further stated, were in the possession of two of the Khots, who were expressly named by them and described also as "mortgagees." These statements of the occupants, which included the description of the two Khots as "mortgagees, were recorded by the Settlement officer in a big book of which Exhibit 88 is an extract. At the end of that book, several Khots admitted in writing signed by them the correctness of the statements "made by the occupants to the above mentioned effeat and recorded by the Settlement officer.

(3.) The appellants case is as it was in both the Courts below, that the two Khots who were mortgagees having admitted in writing over their signatures the correctness of all the statements made by the occupants, that admission must be treated as having extended to the description of those two Khots as "mortgagees," since it formed part of those statements, and that as such admission it amounted to an acknowledgment of their liability to be redeemed by the occupants who were also mortgagors.