RAGHUBARDAYAL AND AGARWALA, JJ.

( 1 ) THIS is a judgment-debtors appeal against an order of the learned Additional District Judge of moradabad dated 4th August 1945, allowing an appeal of the decree-holder respondent against the order of the Munsif dismissing an application for preparation of a final decree. The only question in appeal before as is whether the application for the preparation of a final decree was barred under Article 181, Limitation Act. The facts bearing upon the question may be stated shortly as follows :

( 2 ) THE appellants judgment-debtors brought a suit for accounts under Section 33, U. P. Agriculturists Relief Act. The suit was decreed in terms of a compromise according to which the decretal amount was made payable in twelve half yearly instalments. The first instalment was to fall due on 23rd June 1937 and the last was payable on 23rd December 1942. It was further provided that in default of payment of any two instalments the whole amount would become payable with interest allowed by law. The Hindustani expression used in the compromise was rather clumsy. It was: "kul mutalba ekmusht mae sud qanooni lagaya jawe. " As it stands the expression is meaningless, but there can be no doubt that parties meant what we have stated above. No instalment was paid. An application for the preparation of a final decree was made on 26th July 1943. The decree-holder claimed that he was entitled to get a final decree prepared in respect of all the twelve instalments.

( 3 ) NOW, if regard be had to the default in payment of the first two instalments then the cause of action accrued on 23-12-1937, and an application for preparation of the final decree should have been made by the latest on 23-12-1940. But if regard be had to the last of the defaults or to the individual instalments alone, then it was clear that the last five instalments, namely, those that fell due on 23-12-1940, 23-6-1941, 23-12-1942, 23-6-1942, and 23-12-1942, were within time.

( 4 ) THE Munsif held that the application was time barred. Against that order the decree-holder appealed to the lower appellate Court. The lower appellate Court held that the ruling reported in buttan Singh v. Sakal Raj Singh, 1945 ALL. W. R. H. C. 54 applied to the case. In that ruling it was held that there was nothing in Article 181, limitation Act which indicated that the decree-holders right to apply for a final decree accrued only once; rather a new cause of action accrued upon every fresh default and not only once on the occurrence of the first default. The lower appellate Court, therefore, ordered that the decree-holder was to have a final decree prepared in respect of the last five instalments which fell due within three years of the making of the application and remanded the case to the lower Court for the preparation of a final decree. The decree-holder has submitted to this order but the judgment-debtors have come up in appeal to this Court.

( 5 ) IT has been contended before us by Mr. B. D. Gupta on behalf of the judgment-debtors-appellants that the cause of action for preparation of the final decree accrued only once and that was on the first default in the payment of two consecutive instalments, that is to say, on 23-12-1937, and that, therefore, the application was time-barred under Article 181 limitation Act. According to him "the right to apply" within the meaning of col. 3 of Art 181, limitation Act means the first right to apply, and he has relied upon a Division Bench decision of this Court reported in Mt. Bhagwati v. Sant Lal, A. I. R. 1946 ALL. 360. (Verma and Pathak jj.)

( 6 ) WE think that the question involved in this appeal is not free from difficulty and there does not appear to be a uniformity of decisions in this Court.

( 7 ) NOW let us mention the case law bearing upon the point in chronological order. But before we do so, it will be well if we take note of similar provisions under different Articles of the limitation Act: article 74: On a promissory

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