JUDGMENT

Tek Chand, J. - On 8th March 1925 the appellant obtained a decree for Rs. 66,924-12-0 together with interest at 9 per cent. from the date of suit till realization and costs against the defendant. The decree was transferred to Lyallpur for execution. Certain sums were paid by the judgment-debtor to the decree-holder in discharge of the decree but, while making the payments, the judgment-debtor did not specify whether the payments were to be appropriated towards interest or the principal. The decree-holder claimed that he had appropriated these payments first towards interest and the surplus towards the principal. The judgment-debtor's contention was that the payments should have first been appropriated towards the principal.

2. On 2nd January 1926 an application signed by counsel for both parties was filed, stating that they had gone through the accounts and had agreed that the total sum due to the decree-holder on that date was Rs. 25,030 besides interest that had accrued due from 14th May 1925. This settlement was certified before the Court on that date and the execution proceedings proceeded on that basis. Further payments were made subsequent to that date, and on 7th October 1926 another application was presented signed by the judgment-debtor's mukhtar and the decree-holder's counsel Lala Ram Lal stating that they had mutually settled the accounts and Rs. 13,895 was the sum due to the decree-holder on that date to which was to be added interest on the principal amount from 16th June 1926. The decree-holder's pleader Lala Ram Lal, while signing this application, wrote that he had done so at the request of one Sardar Narain Singh. On 12th November 1925, Sardar Narain Singh styling himself as the mukhtar of the decree-holder filed an application through Lala Ram Lal stating that the application of 7th October had been filed under a misapprehension and that Lala Ram Lal had signed it on the authority of Sardar Narain Singh who was not the duly authorized agent of the decree-holder on that date but who had been given a power-of-attorney on 1st November 1926. The decree-holder also wanted to go back upon the settlement of 2nd January 1926, and applied that the accounts from the beginning should be gone into de novo and the payments made, be appropriated first towards interest and then towards the principal. This contention was repelled by the learned Senior Subordinate Judge who held that the plaintiff was bound by the settlements which had been duly certified by his counsel on 2nd January and 7th October 1926.

3. An appeal has been preferred to this Court by the decree-holder and Mr. Mohsin Shah has contended that as at the time of making the various payments the Judgment-debtor had not stated that the payments were on account of interest or principal the decree-holder was entitled under the law to appropriate them first towards the interest and then to apply the surplus towards the principal. This proposition is not controverted by Mr. Gobind Das who appears for the judgment-debtor but he argues that the question does not arise in the present proceedings. The real question is whether the appellant, decree-holder, is entitled to go back from the settlements which were duly certified by his counsel. Mr. Mohsin Shah urges that accounts once settled can be reopened on the ground of error or fraud. In this case, however, no fraud is alleged nor has any error been pointed out except in the anode of appropriation and the dispute between the parties as to that matter had been duly settled by them by compromise in the Court below. On the present record no valid reason has been shown for going behind these settlements. As regards the application of 2nd January 1926 Mr. Mohsin Shah has not been able to urge any valid argument for upsetting it, but, as to the settlement of 7th October 1926, he has contended that the decree-holder had not agreed to it personally, and his counsel Mr. Ram Lal signed the document on the authority of Nara