KAMALESHWARI PRASAD Vs. GANGADHAR MAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the plaintiffs in a money suit. The claim was to recover the balance due as the net result of a series of transactions between the parties between the years 1341 and 1343 IPC. It is common ground that the plaintiffs had a Hindu joint family firm and the defendants had another. Between these there had been business relations for a long time. On 20 Asin 1341 the accounts between the parties were closed and entered up as being fully satisfied; and no balance due to either party. Then on 21 Asin 1341 the plaintiffs made an advance of Rs. 2500 to the defendants. In witness of this advance a handnote was executed which bears dates according to the Fasli and English calendars, that is to say 21 Asin 1341 corresponding to 25 October 1933. The difficulty is that these two dates do not correspond. 21 Asin 1341 was 25 September 1933.

(2.) After this the parties continued to do business with each other. The transactions in suit which are the transactions at Jhajha in District Monghyr consisted of further advances by the plaintiffs to the defendants and some payments by the defendants to the plaintiffs. Transactions up to Baisakh 1343 are summarized in the plaint and the net result according to the plaintiffs was a liability of the defendants to the plaintiffs of Rs. 2949-8-6 on account of principal together with some interest. The correctness of the books of account and the genuineness of the transactions were not seriously challenged by the principal defendant though the guardian ad litem for the minor defendants who are sons of defendant 1 filed a written statement putting the plaintiffs to strict proof. The substantial defence taken by all the defendants was limitation.

(3.) Of the transactions to which the suit relates the only one that was beyond three years from 27 November 1936, the date of suit, is the advance of Rs. 2500 on 21 Asin 1341. The plaintiffs case was that this loan was not time-barred because though the advance was made on 25 September the handnote was executed on 25 October. On this point both Courts have held that the advance was in fact made and the handnote executed on 21 Asin 1341 corresponding to 25 September 1933 and that the English date 25 October 1933 is merely a mistake. The plaintiffs contend that they are entitled to count limitation from the date which the hand-note bears calculated according to the Gregorian calendar under Section 25, Limitation Act, and that the parties should not have been allowed to enter into evidence to prove that the date of execution was another date than that written according to the English calendar in the handnote.