Karuppasami vs Pichu and Another

This is a petition presented u/s 25 of Act IX of 1887. As plaintiff in Small Cause No. 879 of 1889 on the file of the Sub-ordinate Court at

Palghat, petitioner sued to recover from the first counter-petitioner money lent to the tatter by one Suppammal since deceased. His case was that,

after Suppammal''s death, her adopted son, second counter-petitioner, assigned the debt to him, but it appeared that neither the assignee nor the

assignor had obtained a certificate under Act VII of 1889. The Subordinate Judge called upon the petitioner to produce a certificate and granted

him two months 1 time for doing so. Petitioner, however, failed to produce the certificate, and contended that, as the debtor had agreed to pay the

debt to him, he was entitled to recover it without producing a certificate. The Subordinate Judge disallowed the contention and dismissed the suit

with costs. It is argued before us that Act VII of 1889 is applicable only to the representatives of deceased persons, and not applicable to their

assigns. We think the decision of the Subordinate Judge is correct. It is not inconsistent with the language of Section 4 of Act VII of 1889, for a

person claiming a debt under an assignment made by the creditor''s heir certainly claims part of the effects of such creditor. There is nothing in the

section to show that the title derived from the heir is not as much within its purview as the right to succeed set up by the heir himself. It would

further be unreasonable to hold that the assignee is in a better position than the assignor If it were so held, the heir might assign the debts due to the

deceased person to others and thereby evade the statutory duty imposed upon him by Section 4. The intention was to afford protection to parties

paying debts owing to deceased persons, and the construction suggested for the petitioner would frustrate that intention. The heir of a deceased

person cannot by his own act deprive the debtors of the protection guaranteed be them by the Act. We may also observe that a certificate may be

obtained under the Act in respect of particular debts due to a deceased person as contradistinguished from probate or letters of administration,

which create in representatives title to recover all the effects of such person. It is true that the Act is called the Succession Certificate Act, and that

it does not refer in terms to assigns of the heirs of deceased persons; but it does not follow that the right of succession is not the primary basis of

the claim to recover the debt when it is made by the assignee of the heir, who has to prove not only the assignment, but also the assignor''s right of

succession

The petition in therefore dismissed with costs.