The genuineness of documentary evidence, the onus of proof, and the authority to act on behalf of co-mortgagees were central legal principles established in the judgment.

Sir Lionel Leach.:-

This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court of Judicature at Nagpur allowing an appeal from a decree of the Additional Judge of Chanda. The appeal has arisen out of a suit filed by Arjuna (the husband of appellant 1 and the father of appellants 2, 3 and 4) and appellants 5, 6 and 7 (the brothers of Arjuna) to enforce payment of the sum of Rs. 12,553.0.3, claimed to be due on a mortgage executed in their favour by Mt. Bajabai, her son Saoji (father of respondent 1 and the husband of respondents 2 and 3), and respondents 4 and 6 (Saoji's brothers) and on behalf of certain minors. Arjuna, Bajabai and Saoji have died during the course of the litigation. The Additional District Judge held that the minor defendants had no interest in the property mortgaged and this finding has not been challenged. Consequently, they have not been made parties to the appeal.

2. The respondents' case is that in the month of December 1934, the mortgagees agreed to accept the sum of Rs. 9500 in settlement of the amount due under the mortgage, that on 17th January 1935, Rs. 9300 of the agreed amount was paid to Govinda (plaintiff 2 now Appellant 5) who received it on behalf of all the mortgagees, that thereupon Saoji made an endorsement of payment on the mortgage deed and that the endorsement was signed by Govinda in acknowledgement. The reason given by the respondents for the fact that the only acknowledgment of payment was the endorsement was that Govinda said that a receipt could not be given until his brothers were present and that a question remained to be settled with regard to a sum of Rs. 100.

3. The mortgagees, who had formed a joint Hindu family but had become divided before the alleged payment, denied that they had ever agreed to accept Rs. 9500 in settlement, they denied that Rs. 9300 had in fact been paid, they maintained that Govinda had no authority to, accept payment on their behalf and they averred that there was no endorsement on the mortgage when it was filed in Court at the time of the institution of the suit.

4. The Additional District Judge found that there was nothing to indicate that the endorsement had come into existence after the institution of the suit and he formed the opinion that it must have been made when the deed was in transit to or from the two petition writers who were consulted with regard to the drafting of the plaint. In the first place the deed was sent to a petition writer named Shrinivas, who was instructed to prepare the plaint, but he returned the document to the mortgagees as he was not practising at Chanda where the suit was to be filed. It was then sent to a petition writer named Balaji, who drafted the plaint. It was presented to the Court by a pleader named Deshmukh, who also filed the mortgagee deed.

5. The respondents alleged that Rs. 9300 had been raised by the sale of jewellery owned by Bajabai and of certain grain. The Additional District Judge disbelieved this story. He also disbelieved the evidence with regard to the agreement for settlement and the payment of Rs. 9300. He held that the plaintiffs were entitled to Rs. 13,445-2-9, including costs, and be passed a decree for this amount.

6. On appeal the High Court concurred in the finding of the Additional District Judge that the endorsement was on the deed of mortgage when is was filed in Court. The learned Judges did not believe the evidence that the mortgagees bad agreed to accept Rs. 9500 in full settlement of their claim and considered that the evidence with regard to the payment of Rs. 9300 was weak, but they held that once the endorsement of payment on the mortgage deed was accepted as being genuine the defendants' case must in the main be accepted as being true. Therefore, treating the Rs. 9300 as a payment to account, they held that the plaintiffs were entitled to Rs. 3967-9-9 and they passed a decree for fore-closure in respect of this sum.

7. The plaintiffs have appealed, and ask for the restoration of the decree of the