MERCANTILE BANK OF INDIA LIMITED Vs. FMCAEIRO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) As regards Appeal No. 33, this closely resembles the facts in Appeal No. 82 of 1927. Accordingly our judgment in Appeal No. 32 must be treated as embodied in our judgment in this appeal.

(2.) But the difference is this. We are dealing here with Port Trust debentures instead of the Improvement Trust debentures and they are issued under the Bombay Port Trust Act, 1879, Secs.39 and 42, but on similar terms. Further, looking at the list of debentures, Exhibit A to the plaint, we are not concerned with the last three, viz., new Debentures Nos. 11541, 11539 and 11538, because the Mercantile Bank did not hold them at the date of the suit. Then, as regards new debentures Nos. 13342 and 13341, the proceeds of those debentures were recovered by the Bank before the suit. Consequently the Bank are now being sued for the proceeds. That leaves us then with a suit for the return of nine new debentures and the proceeds of two others.

(3.) Now here, like in Appeal No. 32, all the old debentures were renewed by the Alliance Bank and it was the new debentures which were endorsed over to the Mercantile Bank. There is, however, this difference, that in the present case the new debentures are for the same sum as the old debentures, and not for consolidated amounts, as was the fact in the former case. Further, as a detail one finds that the word "cancelled" is endorsed more frequently in the Port Trust debentures both in ink and by perforations. On the other band in the new debenture there is a distinct reference to the renewal, e. g., the words "renewal of No. 7515" in the specimen before us.