JUDGMENT

Tek Chand, J. - The appellant, Gurmukh Singh, has been adjudicated an insolvent on the petition of certain creditors. The learned District Judge found that the appellant was unable to pay his debts, that he had suspended payment and had been openly notifying to his creditors that he would not pay any individual creditor but would settle the claims of all of them collectively at one time. On these facts he held that an act of insolvency within the meaning of Section 6, Clause (g), Provincial Insolvency Act, had been committed by the appellant.

2. On appeal Mr. Jiwan Lal Kapur has not contended the finding that the appellant is unable to pay his debts but has argued that he has not been proved to have committed an act of insolvency. In order to establish his contention he has taken me through the record and has minutely criticized the evidence led by the petitioner's creditors, but after giving full considerations to his arguments, I am of opinion that the learned District Judge has weighed the evidence properly and has drawn correct conclusion therefrom. The evidence fully establishes that the appellant has not paid his creditors anything for a long time and that within three months of the application he told in clear and unambiguous terms several creditors, who had demanded payment from him that he was not prepared to pay up any individual creditors separately but that he would settle with all of them collectively.

3. There is also evidence on the record that he actually told some of them that he had suspended payments of his debts and that he would settle with all simultaneously. Most of these witnesses were not cross-examined and there is no reliable evidence per contra led by the appellant. On these facts it has, in my opinion, been rightly held that the appellant had given notice to suspend payment within the meaning of Clause (g), Section 6 of the Act. It is settled law that the notice contemplated by that clause need not be in writing or expressed in any particular form, it is sufficient if a verbal statement to that effect is made by the debtor to one of his creditors: Ex parte Nickoll, In re Walker [1885] 13 Q.B.D. 469. See also Narayan Das v. Chimman Lal . Again the Provincial Insolvency Act, like the English Bankruptcy Act, does not prescribe any form of words for the notice and it has been held by the highest authority that it is sufficient if, having regard to all the surrounding circumstances, the words used are such as convey to an ordinary businessman the impression that the debtor has no intention to pay his debts and has suspended or is about to suspend payment: per Lords Selborne and, Watson in Crook v. Morley [1891] A.C. 316.

4. Mr. Jiwan Lal Kapur has relied on the case of Ex parte Oastler, In re Friedlander [1885] 13 Q.B.D. 471 where it was held that an oral statement made by a debtor to a creditor that he is unable to pay his creditors in full is not a notice that he has suspended or is about to suspend payments of his debts so as to constitute an act of bankruptcy within the meaning of Sub-section (1), Clause (4), Section 4, (English) Bankruptcy Act, 1883. But in the present case there was not only the statement that he was unable to pay his debts but it is further proved that he told his creditors that he intended to deal with them collectively and not with one or more of them individually. Such a statement clearly amounts to a notice to suspend payment. See In re Scott, Ex parte Scott [1896] 1 Q.B. 619 and Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. 2, p. 34.

5. For the foregoing reasons I hold that the appellant has been rightly adjudicated insolvent. The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs.