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4. The material acknowledgment which we have to consider is the acknowledgment of 8th December 1931, Ex. 60, because if that is a valid acknowledgment, it is not disputed that the suit filed on 27th September 1933, would be within time. It will be noticed that this acknowledgment has been passed within three years of the date on which the plaintiff attained majority, namely, 13th December 1928. It is not disputed that this particular document does constitute an acknowledgment of liability. The objection that is raised to it is that it cannot constitute an acknowledgment within the meaning of Section 19, Limitation Act and cannot start a fresh period of limitation. Now, the argument advanced by Mr. Datar briefly put is this. Mr. Datar says that under Section 19, Limitation Act an acknowledgment must be made within the period prescribed for a suit under the schedule to the Limitation Act. If an acknowledgment is made within the extended period given by Section 6, Limitation Act, then such an acknowledgment is not an acknowledgment within the meaning of Section 19 and it cannot start a fresh period of limitation; and, therefore, Mr. Datar contends that on the plaintiff attaining majority on 13th December 1928, by reason of Section 6 he could file a suit within three years thereafter, but that was not the period of limitation prescribed by the Indian Limitation Act. The period of limitation prescribed was three years from 13th April 1927, and the further period of limitation was an extended period given to the plaintiff by reason of Section 6, Limitation Act, and as the acknowledgment was passed not within the prescribed period of limitation but within the extended period, the plaintiff cannot avail himself of this acknowledgment and the suit is out of time.

6. Then we come to Section 19, Limitation Act and that deals with acknowledgments and provides that where, before the expiration of the period prescribed for a suit in respect of any property or right, an acknowledgment of liability in respect of such property or right has been made in writing signed by the party against whom such property or right is claimed, or by some person through whom he derives title or liability, a fresh period of limitation shall be computed from the time when the acknowledgment was so signed. Therefore, it is clear that an acknowledgment starts a fresh period of limitation, and the one condition that has got to be satisfied is that the acknowledgment must be made before the prescribed period of limitation has expired. Now the whole controversy centres on this: whether it could be said in the case of a minor who is entitled to file a suit after his legal disability has ceased that the period of limitation had already expired and he was filing a suit by virtue of some special concession made under Section 6, Limitation Act although the period of limitation had expired. Mr. Datar contends that Section 19 must be read to mean that an acknowledgment can only be validly made provided it is made within the period of limitation prescribed in Schedule 1. Now, I see no warrant to read the section in the manner suggested by Mr. Datar. The section itself does not refer to the schedule and, as I have pointed out, when one turns to Section 3, the period of limitation for suits is not that which is prescribed in Schedule 1, but it is that which is prescribed in Schedule 1 read with Sections 4 to 25, Limitation Act; and, therefore, when we look at Schedule 1 and read it along with Section 6, the period of limitation: prescribed for a suit by a minor is not the period mentioned in Schedule 1, but a special period as mentioned in Section 6 of the Act. Therefore, in the case of a minor it cannot be said that the period prescribed for a suit has expired till the period of limitation laid down in Section 6 has elapsed. Therefore, in this case when the acknowledgment was given on 8th December 1931, the period of limitation within which the plaintiff could have filed the suit had not expired because he had attained majority on 13th December 1928, and he could have filed a suit under Section 6, Limitation Act, till 13th December 1931.

8. Mr. Datar very ingeniously says that this decision refers to a Madras case, Venkataramayyar v. Kothandaramayyar, 13 Mad. 135 where it has been held that when an acknowledgment is given when the plaintiff was a minor, it starts a fresh period of limitation and the minor is entitled to avail himself of Section 6, Limitation Act and file a suit three years after attaining majority, and, says Mr. Datar, that as the Divisional Bench accepted the Madras decision as good law, they could not have held that the suit was barred by reason of Section 9, Limitation Act. A fresh cause of action accrued to the minor when an acknowledgment was passed on 20th October 1914, and, therefore, the minor was entitled to sue three years after the disability had ceased and, therefore, it became necessary to consider what was the effect of the acknowledgment of 4th January 1918, as it was given when the minor had attained majority and was no longer under a disability; and therefore Mr. Datar says that the decision is binding on us as it was given by a divisional bench. Now, turning to this Madras case Venkataramayyar v. Kothandaramayyar: (13 Mad. 135), with respect to the learned Judges who decided that case, they have attached no proper importance at all to Section 9, Limitation Act. In that case the plaintiff sued on a registered bond executed to his late father on 20th June 1870. The plaintiff's father died in 1875, leaving the plaintiff a minor and therefore the suit would have been barred on 20th June 1876, but the defendants made acknowledgments of their liability in 1876 and 1877 and the suit was filed in 1887. The plaintiff attained majority in 1885 and what the Court held was that as acknowledgments were given when the plaintiff was a minor, and entirely new period of limitation started from the date of the acknowledgment and the plaintiff was entitled to avail himself of the provisions of Section 6, Limitation Act as he was a minor when this new period of limitation started and he was entitled to file a suit three years after he attained majority. It is perfectly true that an acknowledgment under Section 19, Limitation Act does start a fresh period of limitation; but this is a fresh period of limitation in relation to the period which is already running which has not expired and before the expiration of which the acknowledgment is given. But this fresh period of limitation does not mean that by reason of it the plaintiff becomes entitled to file a suit and that any cause of action accrues to him. The cause of action is already there. His right to file a suit is already there and before the period of limitation expires which would have precluded him from filing a suit or enforcing his cause of action, an acknowledgment is given which starts a fresh period of limitation. Therefore, it is difficult to understand how Section 6, Limitation Act can apply where the person entitled to file a suit was not under a disability. As I have pointed out in the Madras case (Venkataramayyar v. Kothandaramayyar: (13 Mad. 135)), the right to file a suit was with the father. The cause of action had accrued to the father and it is impossible to accept the position that merely because an acknowledgment was given within the period of limitation, it conferred a new cause of action upon the minor which entitled him to avail himself of the concession of Section 6, Limitation Act. In our opinion, Venkataramayyar v. Kothandaramayyar, (13 Mad. 135) was not correctly decided and it does not represent the correct law as to the effect of an acknowledgment given to a minor where the cause of action had accrued already and the right to institute a suit had already arisen. If Patkar and Baker JJ. in Maganlal v. Amichand, 30 Bom. L. R. 733: (A. I. R. (15) 1928 Bom. 319) had followed Venkataramayyar v. Kothandaramayyar, (13 Mad. 135) after carefully considering it, I agree with Mr. Datar that the law laid down by that decision would really have been incorporated in Maganlal v. Amichand, (30 Bom. L. R. 733: A. I. R. (15) 1928 Bom. 319). But we do not find in the judgment either of Patkar J. or Baker J. any consideration of the decision in Venkataramayyar's case, (13 Mad. 135) at all. They accepted it as correct law and proceeded to decide the other question which, according to us, was erroneously decided. I should like to refer to another Bombay case before I turn to the decisions of other High Courts, and that is a recent decision reported in Shantaram Shankar v. Chintamanrao Bhalchandra, 44 Bom. L. R. 522: (A. I. R. (29) 1942 Bom. 248). Macklin J. has taken the same view as the Madras High Court, and he has held that where the plaintiff is a minor, not at the date of the original cause of action but at the date of the acknowledgment made subsequently by the defendant, he can, under the combined operation of Sections 6 and 19, Limitation Act 1908, institute a suit within the prescribed period of limitation after his disability as minor has ceased. In our opinion this case also has not been correctly decided. With respect to the learned Judge, he also has not attached the same importance to the provisions of Section 9, Limitation Act as he should have done.

13. Therefore, in our opinion, the acknowledgment dated 8th December 1931, was a valid acknowledgment under Section 19, Limitation Act, that it started a fresh period of limitation and therefore the suit which was filed on 27th September 1983, was within time. I should also like to consider a subsequent acknowledgment, Ex. 62, which is dated 25th August 1932. It is suggested by Mr. Datar that this particular document does not acknowledge any liability. It is written by the defendant to the plaintiff and it tells the plaintiff that the plaintiff owes the defendant a large sum of amount; and then it goes on to say that there are certain previous accounts and after the previous accounts were looked into, if the plaintiff still wanted money, he could be given the same. Now this letter in our opinion clearly admits that there are subsisting accounts between the parties, and once an admission is made of subsisting accounts, there is a clear acknowledgment of liability to render accounts and to pay whatever i.e., due. It is perfectly true that this letter does not contain any promise to pay the amount that might be due on the taking of accounts, but an acknowledgment of liability is different from a promise to pay. There might be an acknowledgment of liability under Section 19, Limitation Act, without a promise to pay, and the Privy Council in Maniram v. Seth Rupchand, 33 I. A. 165: (33 Cal. 1047 P.C.) construed the expression "for the last five years he had open and current accounts with the deceased" as a clear admission of open and current accounts, that either party had a right to an account, and that whoever turned out to be debtor was bound to pay. Therefore, if this is a valid acknowledgment under Section 19--as in our opinion it is--then clearly at the date when the application for amendment was made, namely, 23rd August 1935, any suit that might have been filed on the alternative cause of action would also have been in time.