JUDGMENT

Niamatullah, J. - This is an application for revision directed against the decree passed by the Judge of the Court of Small Causes at Pilibhit dismissing the plaintiff-applicant's suit for recovery of Rs. 250 principal and Rs. 30 interest on what purports to be an acknowledgment of liability, but has been wrongly described by the Court below as a promissory note. As considerable importance has come to be attached to its contents in course of the arguments before us,'-it is desirable to quote it in extenso. It runs as follows:

A sum of Rs. 250, half of which is Rs. 125, has been found due by me to Shaikh Abdur Rafiq...on settlement of account (fahmid hesab kitab) in respect of dealings between me and him (Abdur Rafiq) up to date. These presents are therefore executed to be of service in case of need.

2. The plaintiff's case as set out in the plaint is that dealings hetween the parties were taken account of on 3rd May 1929 when the sum of Rs. 250 was found due to the plaintiff from the defendant who executed the acknowledgment already referred to and promised to execute a hypothecation bond later but did not do so. The defence was a total denial of everything alleged by the plaintiff and no positive case of any kind was set up. In particular it should be noticed that neither limitation nor want of consideration for the acknowledgment was pleaded in the alternative if the acknowledgment were found to have been made. The only issue set down for hearing was:

Whether the defendant owed Rs. 250 to plaintiff as alleged in the plaint.

3. The finding of the Judge is so brief that it may be quoted in its entirety:

I am not satisfied that the plaintiff has succeeded in proving that the defendant owed him Rs. 250 for which the acknowledgment was executed. The plaintiff ought to have submitted a statement of account. His more words cannot be accepted as true. The issue is decided against the plaintiff though I hold that the receipt relied on by the plaintiff was executed by the defendant.

4. I fail to understand what the learned Judge meant in stating that "his mere words cannot be accepted." If "his" refers to the plaintiff, as I think it does, there-must have been some misapprehension in the mind of the learned Judge. The plaintiff does not rely upon his own words but those of the defendant who acknowledged his liability by executing the document, handed over to the plaintiff, and which established that the defendant was on its date indebted to the plaintiff to the extent of Rs. 250. What a party himself admits to be true should be accepted to be so until the contrary is proved, a proposition so well established that no authority need be quoted in support of it. The narrow issue which arose in the case-could only have been answered in the affirmative, and the indebtedness of the defendant having been thus found and no other defence having been raised a decree in favour of the plaintiff should have followed. The learned advocate for the respondent has argued before us that the acknowledgment in question not being account stated" to which Article 64, Lim. Act, refers or the statement of a "balance due on a mutual, open and current account" to which Article 85 of the aforesaid act refers cannot be the foundation of a suit and that the only use which can be made of an acknowledgment like the one in question is to save limitation u/s 19, Lim. Act, provided it can be shown that all the items which had been brought into account were within limitation on the date of the acknowledgment. To my mind every one of these arguments assumes some fact or other and puts the plaintiff to proof of the contrary at a. stage when it is impossible for him to do so and when it is highly unjust to require him to substantiate it. I see no reason why we should assume that the transactions between the parties were not of a character that the balance acknowledged cannot be said to be account stated or that it was not the balance of a mutual open and current account.