- (1.) This is a civil regular first appeal by the defendant Mangalsingh in a suit for recovery of money which has been partly decreed by the District Judge, Jaipur City, by his judgment dated the 23rd December, 1957, for a sum of Rs. 6618-7-3, The appellant having died during the pendency of the appeal in this Court is now represented by his son Bhupendra Singh.
(2.) The facts in so far as they are relevant for the decision of this appeal lie within a narrow compass. It is admitted before us that there were money dealings between the defendant Mangal Singh's father Baneysingh who was a jagirdar of Thikana Barnala in the former State of Jaipur and the plaintiff's father Bhursingh commencing from 1933. On the 10th July, 1942, Baney Singh went into accounts with Bhursingh and found that a sum of Rs. 7540-14-6 was due by him to the latter and signed the Khata Ex. 21 in lieu thereof. It is further common ground between the parties that Baney Singh died some time in the early part of 1943 as a result of which his Jagir was placed under the management of the Court of Wards of the Jaipur State. In pursuance of a notification issued by the Court of Wards under S. 18 of the Jaipur Court of Wards Act, 1925 (hereinafter called the Act of 1925), Bhursingh instituted a claim for the amount due to him before the Court of Wards on the 3rd April, 1943. The Court of Wards accepted the claim for Rs. 6618-11-3 which was the principal amount due to Bhursingh from Baneysingh and rejected the rest of the claim which consisted of interest. It further appears that a sum of Rs. 1000/- each during the years 1945 and 1946 was received by the Court of Wards from the defendant's estate for being paid to Bhursingh and although this amount was deposited in his account, it was somehow never paid to him, Bhursingh died some time in 1950 and the name of his son Gulabsingh was substituted in the list of creditors in the Court of Wards in the beginning of 1951. In spite of all the efforts made by Bhursingh and Gulabsingh to recover the money from the Court of Wards, which the latter had accepted as being due to them from Baneysingh, they were not able to recover anything whatever. Eventually Gulabsingh, plaintiff respondent, after giving the requisite notice to the Court of Wards instituted the suit, out of which this appeal arises, for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 6618-11-3 as principal and a further sum of Rs. 5692-3-0 as interest at the rate of one per cent per annum, the total amounting to Rs. 13310-14-3 in the Court of the District Judge, Jaipur City, on the 2nd February 1952.
(3.) The defendant resisted the suit on a number of pleas but the only pleas out of these which it is material to mention for the purposes of the present appeal are (1) that the suit was barred by limitation and (2) that the document Ex. P-21 upon which it was based was a pure and simple acknowledgment and consequently no suit could be founded on it.;