The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement to prove the loss of the pronote for the maintainability of the suit.

Walsh, J.

1. The plaintiff sued on a lost pronote which he said had been executed in his favour by the two defendants in June-July 1923. Defendant 2 is the mother of defendant 1. The parties are related in the following way: The plaintiffs wife is the daughter of a sister of defendant 2. Defendant 1 contested the suit. His mother, defendant 2, remained ex parte. Originally a decree was passed against both defendants ex parte on 22nd May 1929, but the suit was restored to file on 8th June 1929 on the application of defendant 1. Then plaintiff died and steps not having been taken to bring his legal representative on record the suit abated and was dismissed on 10th August 1929. On 26th October 1929 it was restored to file and plaintiff 2 added as the legal representative of plaintiff 1.

2. Defendant 1 admitted the execution of the pronote, the amount of which, according to both parties was Rs. 100, but he said that only Bs. 80 was received, the other Rs. 20 being credited as a payment on the note on the day after its execution. Of the money, whether Rs. 100 or Bs. 80 actually advanced, both sides agree that there was a repayment of Rs. 35 in July 1924. The plaintiffs case was that the only other payment was one of Rs. 15 "in May 1926 or thereabouts" (vide plaint) and it is on this that he must rely to save limitation (the plaint being presented on 23rd January 1929.) Defendant ls case is that he paid Rs. 50 about the end of September 1924 which payment was endorsed on the pronote; that there was still an amount of Rs. 10 due on the note which plaintiff refused to remit and that be (defendant l) went away to the Isles a year afterwards. He was not in India at the time of the alleged payment of Rs. 15. Plaintiffs wife, he says, ran away from plaintiff and there were ill-feelings between plaintiff and himself in connexion with this matter, and hence this suit, which is barred by limitation, has been vexatiously brought. The lower Court says:

The points for determination are (1) is the loss of the promissory note true? (2) Is the discharge pleaded by defendant 1 true?

3. The Court found both issues in plaintiffs favour and granted him a decree. This Civil Eevision Petition is filed against the decree. With regard to issue 1 the finding rests on no evidence at all. The plaintiffs case had been in the plaint that when his wife ran away she took the pronote with her, and he appears to have given evidence to this effoot in the ex parte trial, the decree in which was subsequently set aside. In the present trial plaintiff ls father-in- law, P.W. 2, was put into the box, evidently to support this story of theft or loss, but he failed miserably, for having made a statement-in-chief that his daughter ran away with the pronote executed by defendant 1, he stated in cross-examination that he did not personally know of his daughter running away, and his information that she took the suit pronote was only derived from plaintiff 1. His account of some alleged complaint to the police by the plaintiff is utterly useless, for he says that plaintiff 1 did not complain against anyone in particular, and that the plaint was to the Mannargudi Police, while D.W. 2, the Village Munsif, says the village is in the jurisdiction of the Nidamangalam Police and he was not challenged on this point. No copy of the complaint is produced and the police admittedly made no inquiries. I have had to detail these facts at some length to show that there is not a scrap of evidence adduced at this trial to show the pronote was lost. The learned District Munsif has arrived at his finding on this point in a most extraordinary way. He starts by saying, quite rightly, that the evidence of plaintiff 1 recorded in the previous trial ought not to be used against the defendants as the defendants had no opportunity of cross-examining the plaintiff when the statement was made.

4. As there is absolutely no other evidence except his, one would have thought that this would at once sett