Proof of signature of a Pardanashin lady in a suit based on promissory note.

The point for determination in this appeal is whether the promissory note, Exhibit A-1, was executed by defendants 1 and 2, and, if it was, -whether it is not supported by consideration. The learned Subordinate Judge found that the promissory note was executed by defendants 1 and 2 and that it was supported by consideration. The defendants appeal from that judgment.

The promissory note purports to have been executed by defendants 1 and 2 in favour of the plaintiff. The second defendant is the wife of defendant 1. The promissory note is in a printed form. The evidence of P.Ws. regarding the execution of the promissory note is this. Defendant 1 filled up the blanks in the printed form. The printed form as filled up by defendant was the promissory note for Rs. 6,200 payable with interest at 12 per cent. per annum for value received in cash. It contains the words, “ We promise” . The agreement between defendant 1 and P.W. 1 was that the promissory note should be executed by both the defendants. P.Ws. 1 and 2 and defendant 1 were sitting in the payal of the house of the defendants. Defendant 1 after having filled up the blanks in the form, took the promissory note inside, saying that he would obtain his wife’s signature. She is a purdhanashin lady whom the plaintiff should not see. Defendant 1 came out with her thumb-impression and her signature in Urdu. He told the P.Ws. that the thumb impression and signature had been affixed by his wife. He made an endorsement to that effect in the lefthand margin of the promissory note and signed that endorsement. After signing that endorsement, he affixed his own signature, to the promissory note below the signature and thumb-impression which, he said, were his wife’s. P.W. 1 accepted the promissory note from defendant 1.

Defendant 1 denied that his wife had affixed her thumb-impression or made her signature. His evidence is this: P.W. 1 was not present at the time of the execution of the promissory note by defendant 1. P.W. 2 took the promissory note to defendant 1. P.W. 2 wanted that the promissory note should be executed by both the defendants. The first defendant told P.W. 2 that defendant 2 would not agree to execute the promissory note ; but P.W. 2 said that defendant 1 might make an endorsement on the margin that the thumb-impression and the signature were those of his wife and sign the endorsement and also the promissory note and that P.W. 2 himself would obtain the second defendant’s thumb-impression and signature. On the statement being made by P.W. 2 defendant I wrote the endorsement ‘which appears in the margin and affixed his signature to the endorsement and to the promissory note.

It is plain that the evidence of defendant I is false. Neither P.W. 1 nor P.W. 2 was interested in taking the promissory note as if executed by defendant 2 if she was not willing to execute it. Defendant I himself would not have left the promissory note in the hands of P.W. 2 or P.W. 1, knowing that they would make an attempt to forge a signature or have a thumb-impression affixed as the signature or thumb-impression of his wife. I agree with the learned Subordinate Judge in his appreciation of the evidence on this point. I find that the evidence of the P. Ws. is true and that the facts in relation to the execution of the promissory note are that defendant 1 promised that the promissory note would be executed by him and his wife, that he wrote out the promissory note, filling up the blanks in the printed form, and took the promissory note inside his house for his wife to sign it, that he brought the promissory note out with a thumb-impression and signature in Urdu, that he told P.Ws. I and 2 that the thumb-impression and signature were his wife’s and made an endorsement to that effect in the promissory note, and that, thereafter, he himself put his signature to the promissory note below the thumb-impression and signature which were represented by him to be his wife’s. Defendant 1’s signature to t