The main legal point established in the judgment is the principle of allowing the plaintiff to fall back upon the original cause of action and the discretion of the Court in permitting amendments to the pleadings.

Venkataramana Rao, J.

1. The question to be decided is, whether the learned Judge in permitting the amendment has infringed any principle of law or of procedure governing the point.

2. The facts may be briefly stated. The suit was filed on a promissory note dated 29th June, 1931. In the list of documents filed with the plaint seven previous promissory notes were mentioned. The dates and the amounts for which the notes were executed were set forth and the documents themselves were filed with the plaint.

3. The defendant in his written statement, while admitting the genuineness of the previous notes, denied that he executed the suit promissory note. He further pleaded that the note on which the suit was based, being one payable to the plaintiff or bearer on demand, contravened the provisions of the Indian Paper Currency Act, 1923 and was therefore unenforceable. There was a further defence raised which related to*the plaintiffs right to sue, but for the purpose of my judgment that plea is not relevant.

4. The plaintiff, with a view to overcome the difficulty raised, namely, that the suit note was unenforceable, applied for leave to amend his plaint by alleging that he based his claim on the original promissory note dated 31st July, 1913 (mentioned in the list of documents already referred to) and by treating the subsequent notes including the suit note, as acknowledgments of the original debt. But unfortunately, among the notes there was one which was executed after the expiry of three years from the date of the note, which immediately preceded it. The dates of those two"notes were respectively 17th July, 1928, and 14th June, 1925. The plaintiff was therefore driven to allege that the former note contains a promise to pay a timebarred debt and applied for further leave, to base in the alteranative a substantive cause of action on the note of 17th July, 1928. The lower Court allowed both the amendments, that is to say, it allowed the plaintiff first, to fall back on the original cause of action of 1913 and secondly, in the alternative, to claim relief on the basis of the promissory note of 1928. The question is, as I have said, whether the learned judge in making that order has contravened any settled principles bearing on the subject.

5. Mr. Rajah Iyer for the petitioner does not seriously contest the proposition, that in a suit on an invalid promissory note, the plaintiff can be allowed to fall back upon his original cause of action. In this case the question is, which is the original cause of action? That the transaction of 1913 be it the first promissory note or the debt evidenced by it, answers that description, there can be no doubt. But if the debt had become barred and in 1928 a fresh promise was made to pay the barred debt, I fail to see why it should not be likewise held that the suit debt had its origin in the fresh promise. In fact had there been no intervening gap, the original cause of action would certainly have been the transaction of 1913; but if by reason of the gap that intervened, the plaintiff could substantiate his assertion that there was a fresh promise to pay the barred debt, that promise would undoubtedly be the original cause of action in respect of the suit promissory note. I am therefore disposed to think that the lower Court did no more than allow the plaintiff to fall back upon the original cause of action. If the question is looked at in one way, the transaction of 1913 becomes the original cause of action; if in another, the transaction of 1928.

6. The question of fact which is of fundamental importance is, whether the promissory note of 1931 sued upon is or is not genuine. If it is genuine, the plaintiffs claim is a just one and the allowing of the technical plea of the defendant, however valid in law, will result in that claim being defeated. Whether the plaintiff seeks to have his original claim tried or any of the alternative claims introduced by way of amendment, he is bound to face the iss