The main legal point established in the judgment is that acknowledgments of debt must clearly infer an intention to pay or satisfy the debt, and there must be a distinct admission of the debt and the intention to continue the jural relation until lawfully determined.

Muthusami Aiyar, J.

1. The main question arising for decision in this appeal is as to limitation. The suit is one brought to recover a debt alleged to be due upon a bond dated the 1st September 1879. The document provided for repayment of the debt within six months from the date of its execution, and on the 24th July 1882 the appellant paid Rs. 50 in part and endorsed the payment on the bond. The suit was, however, not brought till the 2nd April 1890, and it would clearly be barred unless the debt was acknowledged to be a subsisting debt within intervals of three years between the 24th July 1882 and the 2nd April 1890. The respondents case was that Exhibits C, D and E contained . together 3 such acknowledgments, but for the appellant it was contended that they were not sufficient to satisfy the requirements of S, 19 of Act XV of 1877. The judge overruled the appellants contention and decreed the claim but it is urged before us that the decision of the judge is bad in law.

2. Section 19 of Act XV of 1877 is in these terms :--"If, before the expiration of the period prescribed for a suit in respect of any property or right, an acknowledgment of liability in respect of such property or right has been made in writing signed by the party against whom such property or right is claimed, or by some person through whom he derives title or liability, a new period of limitation, according to the nature of the original liability, shall be computed from the time when the acknowledgment was so signed." Explanation (1) states that for the purpose of this section an acknowledgment may be sufficient though it omits to specify the exact nature of the right or avers that the time for payment has not arrived or is accompanied by a refusal to pay or coupled with a claim to a set-off or is addressed to a person other than the person entitled to the debt. Exhibit C is copy of a deposition given by the appellant in 0. Section No. 937 of 1884 on the file of the .District Munsif of Nellore and Exhibits D and B are copies of his written statement and deposition in O. S No. 121 of 1887 on the file of the same court. In connection with the language of Section 19, two points arise for consideration, viz., (1) whether the expression " writing signed by the party" includes a deposition signed by him, and (2) whether the debt now sued for was acknowledged in those Exhibits as a subsisting debt which it was the appellants intention to pay, adjust or satisfy. On the 1st point, I am of opinion that a deposition given and signed by a party as a witness in a suit is as much a writing contemplated by Section 19 as is his written statement or a letter addressed by him to a third party. The form of the instrument appears to me immaterial provided that it is signed by the party concerned. The intention is merely to exclude oral evidence of the contents of the acknowledgment and to declare that an oral admission of a debt without a new contract or consideration is not sufficient to prevent the operation of the Act of Limitation. It is true that a deposition contains a statement made under compulsion of law and recorded by a Court of Justice, but it is not on that ground, the less a record of his voluntary acknowledgment provided it is signed by him and contains a definite admission that the debt in question is a subsisting debt which it is his intention to satisfy. As in 9 Geo. 4, Ch. 14, 8. 1, the object was to render an acknowledgment by mere words only, ineffectual for the purpose of saving the statute but not to prescribe a special form of writing. In the case, Data Chand v. Sarfraz, reported at I. L. R, 1 A, 117, the. record of rights prepared at a settlement and signed by a mortgagee was considered to contain a sufficient acknowledgment.

3. As regards the 2nd point, the acknowledgment must be such as will lead the court to infer an intention on the part of the writer to pay or satisfy the debt. "The rule in England," says Lord Justice Gotten in Green, v. Hum