VIVIAN BOSE,J.

(1) THE defendant appeals.

(2) THE plaintiffs were the partners of a firm known as Harnam Singh Jagat Singh. Before the partition of India they carried on the business of cotton cloth dealers at Lyallpur which is now in Pakistan.

(3) THE defendant is the Delhi Cloth and General Mills Co. Ltd. It is a registered company carrying on business at Delhi and other places and has its head office at Delhi. One of the places at which it carried on business before the partition was Lyallpur.

(4) THE plaintiffs case is that they carried on business with the defendant company for some three or four years before 1947 and purchased cloth from the company from time to time. In the course of their business they used to make lump sum payments to the defendant against their purchases. Sometimes these were advance payments and at others the balance was against them. When there was an adverse balance the plaintiffs paid the defendant interest: see the plaintiff Sardari Lal as P. W. 3.

(5) ON 28/7/1947 the account stood in the plaintiffs favour. There was a balance of Rs. 79-6-6 lying to their credit plus a deposit of Rs. 1,000.00 as secu