1. From very early times chit fund transactions have been highly popular in all parts of Kerala as an indigenous system providing financing facilities in the shape of advances from the common fund repayable in easy instalments and serving also as a scheme for investment and savings. The question that we are called upon to decide in these two appeals is one of vital importance for the conduct of such chit fund transactions since it concerns the legal validity and enforceability of a provision commonly found in most kuri varis and hypothecation bonds executed by prized subscribers in favour of the foreman which empowers the latter to demand immediate payment of the whole of the amounts due in respect of the future instalments in a lump sum with interest at 12% per annum if default is committed by a prized subscriber in due payment of two consecutive instalments. In Raghavan v. Subbrama Sastrigal,1971 KLT. 231, a Division Bench of this court had occasion to consider the enforceability of such a stipulation contained in a kuri variola. It was held in that case that the said provision when considered against the background of the several other clauses contained in the concer