RAMJAN ALI Vs. KHAWJA MEER AHMED SETHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under the Letters Patent from a decision of Manohar Lall J. in a second appeal affirming the decision of the Courts below in a suit based on a bond executed by defendant 1 in favour of defendant 2 on 19 June 1931 The bond having been duly assigned by defendant 2 in favour of the plaintiff, the latter brought, this suit on 23 March 1934, to recover the sum due under it. The only question which arises in this second appeal is whether two letters, Exs. 1 and 1(a) dated 23 September 1933 and 28 January 1934, respectively, constitute a valid acknowledgment of the liability, of defendant 1 so as to extend the; period of limitation for the suit which would other wise have been barred. Admittedly these letters were written not by defendant 1 but by one Rahmat Ali; but both the trial Court and the lower Appellate Court found that Rahmat Ali wrote these letters at the instance of and on the instructions given by defendant 1, and defendant 1 had these letters duly posted to the address of defendant 2.

(2.) Both the Courts held upon these facts that these letters constituted a valid acknowledgment of liability so as to bring the case under Section 19, Limitation Act, and this view has been upheld by the learned Judge of this Court on second appeal. The learned advocate for the appellant contends that these letters do not constitute a valid acknowledgment, first, because they were not signed by defendant 1 himself although there is evidence to prove that he could make his own signature; and secondly, because Rahmat Ali was not duly authorized to acknowledge the debt due under the bond. It is true that the letters have not been signed by defendant 1; but the question as to what constitutes a signature under Section 19, Limitation Act, has been considered in a series of cases by the Indian High Courts, and there is a consensus of opinion that if upon a document which purports to be an acknowledgment of liability there appears the name of the debtor, and this name is introduced under his authority with a view to authenticate the document, such a document would be a valid acknowledgment of his liability.

(3.) This view is very lucidly set out in the judgment delivered by the learned Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court in Mathura Das V/s. Babu Lal 1877 1 All 683and it has been reiterated in a number of subsequent decisions. The learned Chief Justice in the case referred to above observed as follows: The Act does not require that the signature should be at the foot or in any particular part of the document, and in our judgment, whenever the maker of an instrument or his agent acting with authority introduces the name of the maker with a view to authenticate the instrument as the instrument of the maker, such an introduction of the name is a sufficient signature.