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8. The contention of Mr. Ramabhadran is that the prohibition contained in Section 35 of the Stamp Act against receiving in evidence insufficiently stamped promissory note will arise only when the suit is filed for the recovery of the money on the foot of the promissory note and the promissory note is sought to be marked in evidence is the very foundation of the plaint claim. But the said prohibition will not apply where is insufficiently stamped promissory note is only sought to be used in evidence for the collateral purpose of proving the loan, in a case where the suit is not on the promissory note but on the original cause of action. Similarly, it could be admitted in evidence for other collateral purposes such as proving the acknowledgment of liability under the promissory note. I am not impressed with this argument of Mr. Ramabhadran. Section 35 of the Stamp Act has no relevance at all to the Stamp Act has no relevance at all to the nature of the plaint claim. It deals only with the reception in evidence of an instrument in-sufficiently stamped. The prohibition under Section 35 of the Stamp Act will come into play irrespective of the fact whether the instrument that is sought to be admitted in evidence is the very foundation of the plaint claim or it is only sought to be used as a piece of evidence for a collateral purpose. If the contention of Mr! Ramabhadran, that Section 35 will be attracted only when a plaintiff files a suit on an insufficiently stamped promissory note and not in other cases is accepted, then the section will not apply to cases where the defendant to an action is put to the necessity of marking in evidence an insufficiently stamped promissory note. Though no doubt cases where the defendant seeks to mark an insufficiently stamped promissory note in evidence may be rare, it cannot be postulated that no such instance will arise. In those cases, it cannot be said that the promissory note will constitute the foundation of the action and if the argument of Mr. Ramabhadran is accepted the Court will not be entitled to take any objection to the reception of the said insufficiently stamped promissory note in evidence. I do not think that that would have been the intention of the Legislature in enacting Section 35 of the Stamp Act. When an insufficiently stamped promissory note is admitted in evidence for any collateral purpose, it would only mean that the promissory note is being admitted for "some purpose" and such admission for that "purpose" will defeat the very object of Section 35 of the Stamp Act. Therefore, on the terms of Section 35 of the Stamp Act, it is clear that an insufficiently stamped promissory note cannot be admitted in evidence for any purpose whatsoever.

The learned Subordinate Judge has quite rightly taken this to be a document which comes within Section 35, Stamp Act. It is true that it is a promise to pay at a future date instead of on demand, but it is nevertheless a promise to pay and is in my opinion clearly provided for by Section 35 Stamp Act. Therefore, the learned Subordinate Judge should have held that the suit was barred by limitation as insufficiently stamped note could not be used in evidence for any purpose and it is not necessary for me to deal with the other questions raised before him.

13. The result of the above analysis is that an insufficiently stamped promissory note is not admissible in evidence for any purpose whatever. It cannot be received in evidence even for a collateral purpose. The admission of a document for a collateral purpose relied upon by the plaintiff would amount to admission of an insufficiently stamped promissory note for some purpose and that is what is exactly prohibited by Section 35 of the Stamp Act.

14. That the above principle is the true and correct interpretation of the principle contained in Section 35 of the Stamp Act is further strengthened by the ratio laid down by the Supreme Court in Javer Chand v. Pukhraj Surana . The plaintiff therein filed a suit against the defendant for the realisation of 39,615 on two mudatti hundies executed by the defendant in favour of the plaintiff. The main plea raised by the defendant was that the hundies were inadmissible in evidence in view of the fact that they were insufficiently stamped. One of the issues raised Was whether the two hundies, the basis of the suit being unstamped were inadmissible in evidence. The hundies were marked as Exhibits P-1 and P-2. The defendant as D.W. 5 stated that he had drawn the two hundies. The other witnesses were also examined and cross-examined with reference to the hundies. The learned trial Judge came to the conclusion that the instruments having been introduced, in evidence, the defendant was barred under the provisions of Section 35 of the Stamp Act, from raising the question of admissibility of the document in evidence and in that view, he decreed the suit. On appeal by the defendant, the High Court took the view that the plaintiff could not take advantage of the provisions of Section 35 of Stamp Act in view of the fact that the admission of the hundies was a pure mistake. Before the Supreme Court the legal effect of the receipt of the insufficiently stamped promissory note in evidence arose for consideration. Sinha, C.J., after extracting the Section 36 of the Stamp Act stated : "Section 36 does not admit of other exceptions. Where a question as to the admissibility of a document is raised on the ground that it has not been stamped, or has not been properly stamped, it has to be decided then and there when the document is tendered in evidence. Once the Court, rightly or wrongly, decides to admit the document in evidence, so far as the parties are concerned, the matter is closed. Section 35 is in the nature of a penal provision and has far-reaching effects. Parties to a litigation, where such a controversy is raised, have, to be circumspect and the party challenging the admissibility of the document has to be alert to see that the document is not admitted in evidence by the Court. The Court has to judicially determine the matter as soon as the document is tendered in evidence and before it is marked as in exhibit in the case ....Once a document has been marked as an exhibit in the case and the trial has proceeded all along on the footing that the document was an exhibit in the case and has been used by the parties in examination and cross-examinations of their witnesses, Section 36 of the Stamp Act, comes into operation. Once a document has been admitted in evidence, as aforesaid, it is not open either to the trial Court itself or to a Court of Appeal or revision to go behind that order. Such an order is not one of these judicial orders which are liable to be reviewed or revised by the same Court or a Court of superior jurisdiction. The ratio of this decision has been re-affirmed by the Supreme Court in Ram Rattan v. Bajrang Lal . The result that follows from the above decisions of the Supreme Court is that once an insufficiently stamped negotiable instrument is admitted in evidence, then its admissibility on the ground that it is insufficiently stamped cannot be subsequently raised in view of Section 36 of the Stamp Act. Therefore, once an insufficiently stamped negotiable instrument like promissory note is admitted in evidence even for a collateral purpose, the promissory note as a whole becomes admissible and the ground of objection to its admissibility as a promissory note by reason of its being insufficiently stamped cannot be subsequently raised on account of the operation of Section 36 of the Stamp Act. In such circumstances, the plaintiff will become entitled to use the very instrument itself as the foundation of his action. This will be defeating the provisions of Section 35 of the Stamp Act. This is another reason why an insufficiently stamped promissory note cannot be admitted in evidence even for collateral purposes .

18. Mr. Ramabhadran then advanced another contention viz., in the present case the promissory not has been executed as a collateral security and therefore the same would be admissible in evidence. I have already referred to the ambit of Section 35 of the Stamp] Act. The said section is not concerned with the purpose for which the promissory note is executed. The section does not make any distinction between a promissory note which evidences the very borrowing itself and a promissory note which is executed as a collateral security. When once it is seen that a promissory note which has to be stamped in accordance, with the provisions of the Stamp Act is not so stamped then the Section 35 will be attracted and an insufficiently stamped promissory note will be inadmissible in evidence for any purpose and such a defect cannot be cured by a subsequent payment of the duty and the penalty thereon. Therefore, the contention that Section 35 of the Stamp Act is not attracted to cases where the promissory note is executed as a collateral security for the loan has only to be rejected.