JUDGMENT

Mackney, J - In this matter both the original Court and the lower Court of appeal have held that t eh alleged signature of the 2nd defendant to the promissory note on which the appellant Satya Narayan Tewari sued was a forgery. The appellant's case was that the promissory note had been executed by the 1st defendant-respondent, Sital Missir, and that his brother Sarabjit Missir had executed it at a subsequent time. In my opinion it is not possible now to go behind the concurrent finding of the lower Courts on the fact that not only did the 2nd defendant not execute the promissory note at a subsequent time, but that he never executed it at all and that his alleged signature was a forgery. It is now argued that in spite of that fact the appellant is entitled to succeed against the 1st defendant-respondent because he has been proved to have executed the promissory note. The lower appellate Court relied on the decision of Gour Chandra Das v. Prasanna Kumar Chandra (1906) 33 Cal. 812. I do not think it is necessary to repeat the arguments which are to be found in the record of that decision. The case was a very parallel one. It was held that such a forgery was a material alteration of the document. This decision is in conformity with the English decisions. These may be found referred to in Ma Shwe Yu v. Raman Chetty (1900) 1 L.B.R. 255, although in that case it was held by Fox, J., that the addition of certain names to the promissory notes in question was not a material alteration of them. This decision was based on the ruling of the learned Judges in Aldous v. Cornwell (1867) 3 Q.B. 573, where they said:

We are certainly not disposed to lay down as a rule of law that the addition of words which cannot prejudice any one, destroys the validity of the note.

2. Certainly these words cannot be applied, in the present case where the addition of the forged signature of the 2nd defendant clearly did prejudice at least the 2nd defendant. In my opinion the decision of the lower appellate Court was correct. This appeal is dismissed with costs.