Wadsworth, J.

1. These three cases have relation to the same transaction and they are to some extent interdependent. We are concerned with a promissory note debt incurred on 4th December, 1930, by the first defendant, in the suit out of which A.S. No. 131 of 1940, arises, in favour of the first plaintiff. This debt was a renewal of two earlier debts incurred by the father of the first defendant. The suit note was assigned by the first plaintiff to the second plaintiff for collection and re-assigned to the first plaintiff in November, 1939. Meanwhile, the first defendant had become an insolvent, his insolvency petition being filed on 6th July, 1932, and the adjudication being four months later. The insolvency was not prosecuted and on 1st November, 1938, the Insolvency Court passed an order annulling the adjudication owing to the default of the insolvent and directing that under Section 37 of the Provincial Insolvency Act, the properties should vest in the Official Receiver. After this order was passed, the first defendant, who is the appellant here, seems to have made some sort of arrangement with certain of his creditors and on the 2nd December, 1938, he filed a civil misce