Judgment

VENKATARAMA AYYAR, J. : These appeals arise out of a suit instituted by the respondents to enforce a mortgage deed, Exhibit A dated 4-5-1923, executed by the defendant in favour of one Radha Prasad Bhagat. The subject-matter of the mortgage is an estate called the Bodogodo Zemin situated in what was the District of Ganjam in the Province of Madras and now comprised in the State of Orissa, and governed by the provisions of the Madras Impartible Estates Act, 2 of 1904. The Mortgage is for Rs. 1,25,000 and the deed recites that a sum of Rs. 12,500 was advanced to the mortgagor on a promissory note executed on 30-3-1923, that the balance of Rs. 1,12,500 was paid to him in cash, and that the entire amount was borrowed for meeting the expenses of the marriage of his second daughter with the eldest son of the Rajah of Talcher.

The marriage, in fact, took place on 27-4-1923. Though the deed recites that Rs. 1,12,500 was paid in cash, the case of the plaintiffs is that it was, in fact, paid on 14-4-1923 on the authority of the defendant to his manager, one Mr. Henry Tapp after the mortgage bond was registered, which was on 10-4-1923. In 1926 and 1927 the defendant made several paymen