Chakravartti, C.J. - (1.) These two appeals were argued ably and at great length on both sides, but even that argument did not wholly dispel the obscurity attaching to some of the questions of law debated. Further investigation was, therefore, necessary. I may add that neither of the two allied questions on which the parties presented the longest argument before us, had been raised in the Court below.
(2.) The facts are as follows: On July 25, 1944, one Montosh Kumar Chatterjee opened a current account at the South Calcutta branch of the Central Calcutta Bank Ltd. with a deposit of Its. 1,000. He was allowed almost immediately to overdraw the account, apparently without any arrangement being made in that behalf, and by December 6, 1944, the total of his withdrawals had already mounted up to a little over Rs. 18,000. At that stage, he was asked to "regularise the account" and furnish proper security. On December 6, 1944, he applied for, and the Bank agreed to grant him, an overdraft in his current account up to the limit of Rs. 30,000 on the guarantee of one Asoke Kumar Sen. The guarantee was given in the form of an endorsement on the application of Montosh who also executed a promissory note for Rs. 30,000 in favour of the Bank on the same day. He executed another promissory note for Rs. 10,000 on December 29, 1944, but with that note the guarantor had no connection. After formal arrangements for an overdraft had been made, Montosh went on drawing on his account and depositing various sums in it from time to time and thereby kept the account open till October, 1948. During that period, the account was almost always in debit, but it was in credit on two occasions, once to the extent of Rs. 142-5 as. on June 30, 1945, and again to the extent, according to the books of the Bank, of Rs. 138-14 as. on June 28, 1946. The actual credit on the second occasion was larger, because previously a sum of Rs. 2,000 had been wrongly debited on account of financing charges to which the Bank was not entitled. On October 8, 1948, Montosh made his last deposit which was of a sum of Rs. 100 by a cheque drawn on the Reserve Bank of India. The pay-in-slip was signed by him and he handed over the cheque himself. Thereafter there were no further withdrawals or deposits, but the account was kept open by the addition of interest month after month till October 31, 1950, when it was closed. On that date the debit balance stood in the books at Rs. 19,861.
(3.) The application for the overdraft and the endorsement thereon were in the following terms: Dear Sirs, Would you be so good as to grant me/us on promissory note or overdraft of Rupees Thirty thousand (Rs. 30,000) only in my/our Account Current with you against the securities as per Memo, below to be duly repaid or adjusted on or before the... next or earlier on demand by the Bank at any time before that date. I/We agree to pay interest at 6 per cent, per annum with monthly rests, on the daily debit balance for the period it will remain unadjusted. Yours faithfully, Montosh Kumar Chatterjee. Loan guaranteed by me Asoke Kumar Sen.;