IMPORTANT POINT
Presumption is rebuttable on the touchstone of preponderance of probabilities.

D.V. Shylendra Kumar, J.—This civil revision petition under Section 18 of the Karnataka Small Cause Courts Act, 1964 is directed against the judgment and decree dated 20.2.2004 passed in S.C. No. 62 of 1995, on the file of the Civil Judge (Senior Division), Jamkhandi whereby the learned Trial Judge has dismissed the suit filed by the petitioner, a suit for recovery of sum of Rs. 22,000 based on the pronote said to have been executed by respondent/defendant on 19.12.1992.

2. Aggrieved by the dismissal of the suit, the petitioner/plaintiff is before this Court contending inter alia, that the learned Trial Judge erred in dismissing the suit; that the suit could not have been dismissed in the wake of a clear admission by the defendant about the execution of the document; that the defendant having himself admitted signing of the pronote and a presumption available under Section 118 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. 1881 (for short, ‘the Act’), operated in favour of the plaintiff and the learned Trial Judge should have decreed the suit; that the dismissal of the suit is not tenable in law and the judgment and decree impugned calls for revision and the suit decreed in favour of the plaintiff.

3. The case of the plaintiff before the Court below was that the plaintiff had advanced a sum of Rs. 22,000 on the date of pronote, that the defendant who had promised to repay the amount on demand had failed to pay the same; that a legal notice had been caused in this regard calling upon the defendant to make good the amount, which was returned by the postal authorities and therefore it became inevitable for the petitioner/plaintiff to file the present suit for recovery of amount.

4. The respondent/defendant on being notified entered appearance through counsel has filed written statement. The defendant’s case was one of total denial stating that the defendant had never executed the pronote dated 19.2.1992 in favour of the plaintiff as claimed by the plaintiff, that there were no monetary transactions between the plaintiff and the defendant; that there is no cause of action for the suit. That the plaintiff had stood sure on behalf of the defendant for raising a loan and on that occasion the plaintiff and her husband had taken signatures of the defendant on several blank papers and blank bonds and the plaintiff should have misutilized the same for wrongful gain and in fact they have filed a number of suits against the defendant and his relatives; that certain mounts were, on the other hand, payable by the plaintiff and her husband to the defendant and the defendant on demanding for repayment, the plaintiff with a mala fide intention has instituted the present suit without any cause of action and without justification and therefore was liable to be dismissed.

5. In the context of such pleadings of the parties, the learned Trial Judge had formed points viz., (1) Whether the plaintiff proves due execution of the on demand pronote dated 19.12.1992 for a sum of Rs. 22,000 and (2) if so, what order or decree?

6. While the plaintiff examined herself as PW1 examine PW 2 one Srirang Shankar Nivargi said to be the scribe of the pronote and marked the pronote as Ex. P1, unserved legal notice as Ex. P2 and a small note book maintained by the plaintiff indicating the money transactions between the parties as Ex. P3 and closed her evidence. On behalf of the defendant, the defendant not only entered the witness-box and deposed in support of his case, but got marked a good number documents, particularly in the wake of a subsequent suit, which the plaintiff had instituted again the very defendant in O.S. No.17 of 1996, also a suit for recovery of money based on pronote of the year 1994 for a sum of Rs. 50,000, which was also pending at the relevant time before the Court and certified copy of the said pronote depositions of the plaintiff and the scribe who were common for all the pronotes in that suit and the related documents as Ex. D1 to D16. The effor