ATTU HUSSAIN Vs. JAI NARAIN AGARWALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under the Letters Patent by the defendant from a decision of a learned Judge of this Court sitting singly.

(2.) The suit was brought by the respondent on the basis of an instalment bond which had been executed on 15 November 1939, by the defendant in favour of the plaintiff's brother, who was then joint with him. The bond was executed in respect of past liability upon two handnotes executed on 12 December 1935 and 28 December 1985. According to the plaintiff, a partition took place in his family on 6 December 1941, and this bond was allotted to him.

(3.) Various defences were taken, which were all rejected by the Courts of fact. But a plea in bar was also taken which succeeded before them. The case relates to Chotanagpur, and the Bihar Money-lenders Act, 1939, was extended to Chotanagpur on 20 July 1939, which it will be noticed, was before the execution of the instalment bond. The plaintiff did not get himself registered as a money- lender until 6 December 1941. In these circumstances, it was urged that Section 4, Money-lenders Act, operated as a bar to the suit. That section in effect, provides that a suit shall not be maintainable in respect of a loan advanced after the commencement of the Act except by a registered money-lender, though there is a proviso making a concession in such cases where the loan is advanced within six months of the Act coming into force and the money, lender has got himself registered within the same period. Here, however, the registration was not until more than six months after the Act had come into force.