Govinda Nadan Represented by his Agent, Govindasami Venu Udayan vs A.Y.R.M.R.M. Ramasami Chettiar

Odgers, J.—I postponed judgment: on the 15th September in order to give the appellant''s Vakil an opportunity of satisfying me that the

District Judge went into the question of the nature of the accounts in the case in spite of its not being taken in the grounds of appeal to the lower

Appellate Court. The learned Vakil now states that he is unable to get information on the point.

The suit is brought by the plaintiff for a sum of Rs. 795 odd which is said to be due to him from the defendant a money-lender. The course of

business between the parties was apparently that the plaintiff should-draw money whenever he wanted it and should also deposit money with the

defendant. The plaintiff has not produced any accounts of his own. He relies on a copy of the defendant''s account, Ex. A. The District Munsif

found that the plaintiff had proved his case as he held that a settlement had taken place on either-the 14th or 17th of December 1913. The District

Judge, to whom an appeal was taken, discredited the evidence with regard to this settlement and that is a finding of fact by which I am bound in

second, appeal. But the learned Judge goes on to consider whether the transaction is in the nature of a mutual, open and current account and

would, therefore, save limitation if such was the case and the argument before me has been that the account in Ex. A is such an account. Now in

order. to see what the requisites are for such an account, we should look at the case of highest authority as far as I know in this Court, i.e., the

judgment of Holloway, J., in Hirada Basappa v. Gadigi Muddappa 6 M.H.C.R. 142. In order that an account may be mutual ""there must be

transactions on each side creating independent obligations on the other and not merely, transactions which create obligations on the one side those

on the other being merely complete or partial discharges of such obligations."" That statement has been repeated in many judgments ever since the

year 1871 and it has over and over again been taken as a correct statement of the law. It may be that in the account before me the balance shifted

from one side to the other from time to time. See Shive Gowda v. Fernandez 8 Ind. Cas. 141 : 8 M.L.T. 412 : (1911) M.W.N. 1 : 21 M.L.J. 391

and Kunhikuttiali v. Kunhammad 71 Ind. Cas. 466 . But the account, as far as I have been able to see, resembles exactly a Bank pass-book

where deposits of monies are made and withdrawals of monies take place from time to time, the balance being in favour either of the customer or

of the Bank as the case may be at any given moment. I therefore, agree with the learned District Judge that there do not appear to be independent

obligations on both sides and that a mere shifting of the account from one side to the other is not enough to constitute mutual obligations.

The second appeal must be dismissed with costs.