The central legal point established in the judgment is that a suit for accounts, not falling under any other specific article, is governed by Article 120 of the Indian Limitation Act.

Abdur Rahman, J.

1. This appeal arises out of a suit brought by the plaintiff for taking an account from the defendant bank in respect of the 20 bank shares of the value of Rs. 500 which stood in the name of the plaintiffs husband, A. Goalakrishna Chettiar and to pass a decree against the bank for payment of the balance that may be found due to her after giving her credit for the yearly dividends on those shares on the one side and after debiting her with any liability incurred by her husband touching those shares on- the other.

2. The defendant bank denied the claim and contended inter alia that the suit was barred by limitation. It is this plea with which I am concerned in the present second appeal. The suit was decreed by both the lower Courts and was held to be within time. The bank appeals.

3. Although no Article of the Limitation Act was referred to by the defendant bank in their written statement as required by the forms of general defences given in the Civil Procedure Code (Sch. I, App. A) and their counsel in the trial and in the lower appellate Courts have been vacillating in consequence from one to the other, their learned Counsel has finally chosen to depend on Articles 62 and 89 in this Court and pleads that the suit is barred by either the one or the other.

4. The provision requiring a party to specify the Article or Articles of the Limitation Act, under which the suit is according to him barred, is salutary and must be complied with as far as possible. The omission to mention the Article may prevent the plaintiff at times from producing such oral or documentary evidence as he might have been capable of doing in answer to the objection raised by the defendant and in so far as the onus of proving limitation, is on the plaintiff invariably, it may put him at a disadvantage if some evidence is led on behalf of the defendant, after the case on the plaintiffs side is closed which he would be ordinarily unable to rebut. At all events, this device enables a party to conceal his hand up to the time of final arguments and to spring a surprise on his opponent in a large number of cases. A practice like this cannot but be deprecated and must be discouraged.

5. In order to appreciate the contentions advanced on behalf of the parties, the facts that have given rise to this litigation may be briefly stated. An application was made by the plaintiffs husband to the bank on the 2nd January, 1931, asking for a loan of Rs. 200 (Ex. VI). This was accepted. The plaintiffs husband got the loan on the next day and executed a promissory note in favour of the bank for Rs. 200 (Ex. V). On that date, he lodged 20 bank shares that he had been holding in the defendant bank and on each of which a. sum of Rs. 25 had been paid by him by way of security for the debt advanced to him under the promissory note Ex. V. The plaintiffs husband died on the 19th August, 1931. The shares were sold by the bank on the 2nd June, 1933 for Rs. 530 inclusive of dividend and the money due to the bank was adjusted--the balance of Rs. 264. being kept by them in the suspense account for payment to the plaintiffs husband or to Ms heirs. It may be mentioned here that before this sale no notice was given by the bank to the plaintiff or to any other claimant. A notice appears to have been sent by them in the name of the plaintiffs husband on the 17th March, 1933, but that was obviously of no use. The plaintiff served the defendant bank with a notice on the 24th April, 1935, (Ex. B), in which she asked them for particulars of the shares standing in the name of her husband in the bank and in regard to the dividends that had been due under those shares. There was no reference in this notice to any loan advanced by the defendant bank to the plaintiffs husband or even to the deposit of the shares by him with the bank. To this notice the bank sent a reply on the 30th April, 1935, (Ex. B-l), in which they agreed that they would pay the amount to her if she produced a succ