The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of Section 20 of the Limitation Act and the authority to make a part payment on behalf of the promisor to keep the debt alive.

Patanjali Sastri, J.

1. This is a petition to revise the decree of the Court of the District Munsif of Kundapur dismissing the petitioners small cause suit No. 381 of 1936 as barred by limitation.

2. The suit was brought to recover the amount due on a promissory note executed by the first respondents father on 30th September, 1926. After his- death in 1932, the first respondents guardian executed a mortgage on 20th December, 1932, in favour of the second respondents husband who was directed to discharge the suit debt as part of the consideration for the mortgage. The mortgagee made payments for interest on 29th May, 1933, and 16th July, 1934, which were duly endorsed on the promissory note, but failed to pay the balance of the debt. The suit was instituted in 1936 for the recovery of such balance and it was not disputed that it would be in time if the second payment of interest referred to above satisfied the requirements of Section 20 of the Limitation Act. The Court below held that it did not, on the ground that the mortgagee was neither the person liable to pay the debt nor his agent duly authorised to make such payment within the meaning of Section 20. An attempt was made in the Court below to show that there was a novation by petitioner accepting the liability of the mortgagee but the Court held that it was not proved and that finding could not be and was not attacked before me in revision.

3. The view taken by the lower Court on both points is supported by a recent decision of a Division Bench of this Court reported in Thinnappa Chettiar v. Krishna Rao (1940)2MLJ726 and this would ordinarily have concluded the case in favour of the respondents but for the submission of the learned Counsel for the petitioner with which I am inclined to agree that the decision requires reconsideration on the question of authority to pay in view of the Privy Council ruling reported in National Bank of Upper India v. Bansidhar. The facts of that case so far as they are material here are as follows; One Bishambar who was a director of a bank obtained an unauthorised loan from it, but wishing to conceal from the Bank his indebtedness persuaded one Bansidhar, the first respondent before their Lordships, to execute a promissory note for the amount due on the understanding that he (Bishambar) himself would discharge the debt. The amount of the note was accordingly credited to Bishambar, and Bansidhar was shown in the books as the banks debtor in respect of that sum. Bishambar made a payment for interest, and within three years from such payment but beyond three years from the note, the Bank sued Bansidhar to recover the balance due. In holding that Bishambars payment of interest saved the suit from the bar of limitation, their Lordships observed at page 9:

Upon what they have already held to be the true meaning and effect of the transaction of the 22nd of December 1917, it was agreed between Bishambar and the first respondent that the former would discharge the latters debt to the bank in respect of both principal and interest, and it is clear from the first respondents evidence that he left it to Bishambar to do so. Under these circumstances, it being admitted that no formal authorization of the agent is required under this section, their Lordships find no difficulty in implying authority from the first respondent to Bishambar to pay the interest on his behalf as it became due.

4. As pointed out already, the position under the mortgage transaction in the present case is, to my mind, essentially the same as the mortgagee had undertaken, and the mortgagor had left it to him, to discharge the petitioners debt, and there is nothing to show that it was required to be discharged by a single payment. The same conclusion must therefore follow.

5. In taking the opposite view, the learned Judges in Thinnappa Chettiar v. Krishna Rao (1940)2MLJ726 , followed the earlier decision in Alagappa Chettiar v. Subramania Pandia Thevar (1914)26MLJ509 , where the l