1. Two questions of law arise in this appeal filed by the plaintiffs-landlords in a suit for arrears of rent of a building and the memorandum of cross-objections by the 1st defendant. They are: (1) Whether the acceptance of a cash security from the tenant at the time of letting out the building is hit by S.8 of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965 and whether the tenant is entitled to adjust the same in the monthly rent payable by him before he vacates the building and (2) wether the letters by the tenant claiming set off of the cash security given to the landlord against the rent due will be acknowledgments of the liability for rent under S.18 of the Limitation Act, 1963, whether the payments of rent made by the tenant claiming to be in full settlement of the arrears on the dates of those payments in the covering letters forwarding the cheques for payment will be payments on account of the debt under S.19 of the Limitation Act and whether the acknowledgments and payments will save the limitation for a suit for arrears of rent where a part of the claim will otherwise be time-barred.

2. The short facts of the case shorn of unnecessary details are as fol