Judgment

GUPTA, J. - These are two appeals by the Life insurance Corporation of India (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation) with special leave obtained from this Court against a common Judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court disposing of two appeals preferred by the Corporation. The appeals before the High Court arose out of two suits instituted by the Corporation. For the question that arises for determination, which we will presently state, it is not necessary to set out the facts in any great detail. One of the suits was brought in 1961 for recovery of a sum of about Rs. 17,000/-, after giving credit to the payments made by the defendants, due on a mortgage executed by the defendants in 1950 in favour of the Andhra Insurance Company of Masulipatnam. The other suit was filed in 1962 for recovery of about Rs. 45,555/- also due on a mortgage which was executed in 1952 by the defendants of this suit in favour of the Nagpur Pioneer Insurance Company Ltd., Bombay. Thus in both cases the loans were incurred long before the Corporation was established on September 1, 1956 under the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956. In both suits the mortgagors claimed that the debt should be