The central legal point established in the judgment is the binding nature of an equitable mortgage on joint family property and the permissible purposes for borrowing against family business.

1. The suit from which this appeal arises was instituted by respondent 1 to recover the amount due under an equitable mortgage made by deposit of title-deeds and evidenced by a registered instrument. The amount to secure which the equitable mortgage was made had admittedly been advanced to a business carried on in partnership by defendants 1 to 3, the original defendants in the action.

2. The property over which the equitable mortgage was given as security belonged, however, to defendant 1 or his family. Defendant 4 in this suit, the appellant before us, was added as a party on his own application, apparently with a view to have determined in this action itself the question whether or not the equitable mortgage made by defendant 1 was binding on his half-share in the property.

3. It has thus come about that the pleadings in the case, so far as the liability of defendant 4 was concerned, were not as accurate as otherwise they might have been. On behalf of defendant 4, it being denied that the mortgage was binding on him, the parties went to trial on that issue generally, and Mr. Justice Krishnan who tried the case found it was so binding and granted a decree accordingly. It is from that judgment that defendant 4 has filed the present appeal.

4. In appeal it has been contended before us that the learned Judge was wrong in holding that the mortgage was binding on the plaintiffs share in the property. The argument was based on two grounds by the learned vakil for the appellant. The first was that the property, the subject of the mortgage, being admittedly joint family property of defendants 1 and 4, defendant 1 had no right to alienate the property inclusive of the sons share except for purposes properly binding on the family or for bona fide antecedent debts of his own. It was contended that at the time when the suit mortgage was created, though there was a personal debt of defendant 1 for goods purchased for the business to the extent of Rs. 25,000, still that debt had not yet become payable, the goods having been purchased on credit and the credit period of 70 days not having then expired.

5. It was argued that if goods should be purchased by a person on credit there is no debt due till the expiry of the credit period. This argument was obviously due to a confusion between debts due and debts due and payable. A debt may conceivably be both due and payable even though not demandable or enforceable at law. It is, however, well known that in the piecegoods market at Madras the 70 days credit generally signifies merely that the price payable carries interest at the rate that may be stipulated from the expiry of 70 days, and that if the purchaser should make the payment earlier he would be entitled to a discount also at a stipulated rate calculated proportionately for the unexpired period of credit before which the payment is made. The contention, therefore, cannot be accepted that there is no debt due by the father before the expiry of the credit period, and in any case, it would have been obviously to the interest of defendant 1 to pay up the amount due even before the expiry of the credit period and earn a discount.

6. The learned vakil for the appellant referred in the connexion to the case of Bandhu Ram v. Ramkishun Sonar A.I.R. 1923 All. 535. It was held in that case that the amount secured by a mortgage not being payable for some considerable time could not be regarded as a pressure on the estate or the family as to justify an immediate alienation for the purpose of discharging it. But a trade debt cannot possibly be regarded in the same light and more especially when it is really payable even though not demandable and when, on such payment being made, proportionate discount can also be obtained.

7. The second contention argued on behalf of the appellant was that the amount now sued to be recovered was really not the original debt of Rs. 15,000 borrowed for paying off an antecedent debt of the father, but represents only mo