JUDGMENT

P.K. Balasubramanyan, J.—Leave granted.

2. Defendant No. 1, the appellant, borrowed a sum of Rs.1,10,000/- from the plaintiff Bank for the purchase of a bus. He secured repayment of that loan by hypothecating the bus and further by equitably mortgaging two items of immovable properties. The Bank first filed O.S. No. 131 of 1984 for recovery of the money due. The said suit was decreed. The Bank, in execution, sought to proceed against the hypothecated bus. The bus could not be traced and the money could not be recovered. The Bank tried to proceed against the mortgaged properties in execution. The appellant resisted by pointing out that there was no decree on the mortgage and the bank could, if at all, only attach the properties and could not sell it straightaway. That objection was upheld. The Bank thereupon instituted the present suit, O.S. No. 35 of 1993, for enforcement of the equitable mortgage. The appellant resisted the suit by pleading that the suit was barred by Order II Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, that the transaction of loan stood satisfied by a tripartite arrangement and transfer of the vehicle to one Fernandes, that there was no valid equitable mort