Judgment

VENKATARAMA AYYAR, J.: (Majority Judgment: Sinha, C.J.I., Ayyangar, Mudholkar and Venkatarama Aiyar, JJ.) The appellants are a joint Hindu family firm which has been carrying on business since 1911 in grains, dal, cereals, cotton ginning and pressing, oil manufacture and the like, at a place called Lehragaga in what was once the State of Patiala. The firm had an account called the Cash Credit Account in the Patiala State Bank which had a branch at Lehragaga and used to borrow money in this account on a pledge of its stocks. In 1951-52 there was a heavy slumps in the prices of the commodities with the result that the amounts advanced by the Bank on the security of the goods were very much in excess of the market prices thereof. To cover this shortfall which came to Rs.2,32,000/- the firm catered into an arrangement with the Bank on May 23, 1953, and it is this that forms the source of the present litigation. The Bank sanctioned a loan of Rs.4,50,000/- on what is called "Demand Loan Account." The firm deposited title deeds of the properties belonging to them as security for the amounts that may become payable on that account and the adult members of the family executed a prom