The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the definitions provided by the Negotiable Instruments Act and the Indian Stamp Act, and the exemption of demand drafts from stamp duty.

JUDGMENT

Rankin, C.J. - This is a Reference made to us under the provisions of Section 57 of the Indian Stamp Act. It would appear that certain instruments were presented on behalf of the holder for adjudication as to whether it was necessary that they should be stamped u/s 19 of the Indian Stamp Act. The documents, of which three in number are before us, may be sufficiently exemplified by choosing one of the three. The one, which I shall choose, is a document in the form in which bills of exchange are accustomed to be couched. It is headed " Imperial Bank of India." It is addressed from Calcutta. It is signed as drawer by the Secretary and Treasurer and the Accountant of the Imperial Bank of India. It is addressed to the Imperial Bank of India, Lahore, as the addressee or drawee and it is made payable to a third party?the Commercial Syndicate, Ltd., or order. It will be observed, upon a strict reading of the instrument, that there are two parties and only two parties?the Imperial Bank of India on the one hand and the payee?the Commercial Syndicate, Ltd., on the other. The question is whether these instruments are required to be stamped by virtue of the terms of the Indian Stamp Act as amended recently by the Finance Act, 1927, and I shall discuss first whether this instrument is a bill of exchange within the meaning of the phrase as it is used in the Indian Stamp Act. If it is a bill of exchange, then as by its express terms it is payable on demand, it is prima facie freed from stamp duty by the amendment introduced by the Finance Act (V of 1927).

2. When we come to consider the question whether it is a bill of exchange, we have to refer to the second clause of Section 2 of the Indian Stamp Act. By that clause " bill of exchange " is defined as meaning " a "bill of exchange as defined by the Negotiable Instru" ment Act, 1881, and includes also a hundi, and any "other document entitling or purporting to entitle "any person, whether named therein or not, to pay" ment by any other person of, or to draw upon any other person for, any sum of money." Now, the first question is whether this document is a bill of exchange as defined by the Negotiable Instruments Act of 1881, and on that question, we have to look to Section 5 of the Act. We find that a bill of exchange is defined there as " an instrument in writing containing an un-" conditional order, signed by the maker directing a " certain person to pay a certain sum of money only " to, or to order of, a certain person or to the bearer "of the instrument." This definition may be contrasted with the definition contained in Section 3 of the English Bills of Exchange Act, 1882 (45 & 46, Vic. c. 61), whereunder an instrument to be a bill of exchange must be an unconditional order in writing, addressed by one 'person to another, signed by the person giving it, requiring the person to whom it is addressed to pay on demand or at a fixed or determinable future time a sum certain in money to, or to the order of, a specified person or to bearer. It is to be observed that whereas in the English Act express provision is made by the second Sub-section of Section 5 for the case where in a bill the drawer and the drawee are the same person, namely, that the holder may treat the instrument either as a bill of exchange or as a promissory note; the Indian Statute, which has not expressly required that the instrument in order to be a bill of exchange must needs be addressed by one person to another, nevertheless contains a provision in Section 17 that where an instrument may be construed either as a promissory note or a bill of exchange the holder may at his election treat it as either, and the instrument shall thenceforward be treated accordingly. So far as the first part of the wording of the second Sub-section of Section 2 of the Indian Stamp Act of 1899 is concerned, the question whether the document before us is a bill of exchange as defined by the Negotiable Instruments Act of 1881 raises certai