Devan Ramachandran, J.

1. Ingenious and cleverly inventive contentions and submissions are not new in courts-but what has been asserted and claimed by the appellant here really takes the cake.

2. The appellant is a public sector bank concededly coming within the sweep of Article 12 of the Constitution of India. This appeal has been preferred against the judgment and decree of the Sub Court, North Parur in O.S.No.347 of 2009, which was filed by respondents 1 and 2 herein for return of amounts of money which they claim that they had paid to the bank being under its illegal inducement and because they were made to believe by it that such amounts were legally due to it, while it was not.

3. The defence of the Bank to this claim is, to say the least, stupefying. They admit that respondents 1 and 2 have paid more than what was required of them under the decree, but assert that they are entitled to it because it was paid to them voluntarily and without the respondents 1 and 2 being subject to duress. The Bank concedes that respondents 1 and 2 paid as per the calculation of the decree debt made by it; but predicate that they were empowered to charge and accept more than what the decree had awarded because the loan account was settled not in execution proceedings but “out of court.”

4. The artfulness of these submissions strike us and we are amazed how a Bank, that too a State owned Bank, could be allowed even to be heard so. We will come to our conclusions presently after we narrate the essential facts.

5. The proximate cause that led to the filing of the suit was that respondents 1 and 2 had availed certain sums of money from the appellant Bank as a business loan and when the loan became in arrears, the bank filed O.S.No.42 of 2000 before the Additional Sub Court, North Parur. This suit was decreed on 18.12.2006 thus entitling the bank to realise an amount of Rs. 1,96,795/- with interest at the rate of 6% per annum from the date of suit till realisation. After such decree was passed, respondents 1 and 2 approached the bank and offered to remit the entire amount under the decree which was then calculated by the bank to be an amount of Rs. 6,15,000/-. Respondents 1 and 2 say that they were constrained to make such remittance, without verifying the correctness of the figure calculated by the Bank, since they were in dire need of the title deeds of the property equitably mortgaged by them with the bank, for their business purposes, and also because they never expected the Bank to charge and collect more than what was legally due to them under the decree. However, according to them, after such remittance was made, they became aware that the bank had collected a larger amount than what was entitled to be collected under the decree. Respondents 1 and 2 allege that even the bank was aware of this excess remittance because it had thereafter returned an amount of Rs. 68,000/- on 17.8.2007 and that on 13.11.2007 it had again issued a letter informing them that an additional amount of Rs. 22,087/- is also ready for payment being the excess amount collected from them. Respondents 1 and 2 say that they were not satisfied with the calculation of excess remittance arrived at by the bank and that they, therefore, refused to accept the said amount because, according to them, the alleged excess amount collected by the Bank is to the tune of Rs. 2,65,395/-. They asserted that the bank is liable in law to return the said amount to them and that the action of the bank in refusing to do so amounts to illegality.

6. On the above assertions and allegations respondents 1 and 2 filed O.S.No.347 of 2009 before the Additional Sub Court, North Parur seeking a decree for an amount of Rs. 2,66,309/- with interest, being the alleged excess amount collected from them under the decree obtained by the bank in O.S.No.42 of 2000.

7. The court below took the suit to trial and on the side of the plaintiffs/respondents 1 and 2 herein, Exts.A1 to A4 were marked and PW1, S