1. The 1st defendant is the appellant. The suit was to recover the principal and interest due under a mortgage by deposit of title deeds. The plaintiff's case was that defendants 1 and 4 deposited the documents of title of their properties with its Head Office at Kozhikode with intent to create a mortgage as security for an overdraft accommodation to the tune of Rs. 7,000/-. It may be noted at this stage that the equity of redemption of the properties was sold at the instance of the Government and was purchased by one Muhammad who in turn assigned it to the 2nd defendant.

2. The main contentions of defendants land 4 were that they had not deposited the title deeds at Kozhikode with intent to create a mortgage, that the title deeds were handed over and deposited with the Tirur branch of the plaintiff Bank, that Tirur was not a notified area where a mortgage by deposit of title deeds could be created, that the plaintiff had returned some of the title deeds to the 4th defendant, the legal effect of which was a proportionate abatement in the claim secured under the mortgage, that the plaint claim was barred by limitation and that the properties were not liable to be sold in