1. The defendants, who are appealing, pleaded that they made a payment of Rs. 2,500 on the 26th of December 1919. The evidence in support of this is the entries in their own account books and the depositions of six witnesses, of whom the first and the last only prove a corroborative detail. It is urged on the other side in this Court that the entries in the books are not admissible in evidence under Section 34 of the Evidence Act because the books were not regularly kept. The alleged want of regularity in the keeping of them rests on the assertion that the entries are not in chronological order and the admission by Amir (D.W 2) that the roznama was written up once a week from memoranda on loose papers which were destroyed, and that the khataoni was written up once a month.
2. All these matters affect the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility.
3. The regularity of which S. 34 speaks cannot possibly mean that there is no mistake in the accounts, as that would make the section a dead letter; no accounts could be admitted in evidence till they had been proved to be absolutely correct, which is in itself an impossible task and also cannot be begun till they have been admitted in evidence. Regularly or systematically means that the accounts are kept according to a set of rules or a system, whether the accountant has followed the rules or system closely or not. Nor is there anything in the section that says the system must be an elaborate or reliable one. Both those matters, the degree of excellence of the system and the closeness with which it has been followed, affect the weight of the evidence of an entry, not its admissibility. The roughest memoranda of accounts kept generally according to the most elementary system, though often departing from it, are admissible in evidence, but would of course have no weight.
4. Here I think the entry of the repayment has great weight. The suggested disorder in the dates of the transactions shown in the roznama is completely explained by the statement that the entries in that book were made once a week. The repayment in question is shown in both books according to the system on which they are kept, and it is beyond doubt that the entries were made at the time at which they purport to have been made, that is, on the 26th of December 1919, or on the proper day soon after, according to the system already stated. The truth of the entries is corroborated by the fact, proved by the first and last witnesses, that the mortgagor had, on the 17th of that month, received Rs. 2,400 for the occupancy rights in a field, a matter which is mentioned in the entry in the roznama.
5. There is no rebutting evidence except the bare, denial by the minor mortgagee's father as a witness, and I am satisfied that the alleged payment was in fact made. The appellants also pleaded that they ought not to pay compound interest, but this matter was not pressed. It is perfectly clear that they have to pay compound interest at 9 per cent, par annum, whether that is regarded as a part of the original contract or as damages for breach of that contract or partly as one and partly as the other. The complicated way in which the matter of interest was regarded in the lower Court quite possibly gives the same result; if not it is wrong in addition to being unnecessarily complicated.
6. According to these findings the amount due at the institution of the suit was Rs. 5,101-8-0. But the plaintiff claimed Rs. 8,616-10-0, and the defendants admitted only Rs. 484-14-9. The plaintiff must therefore pay three-eighths of the total costs in the lower Court, and the defendants the remaining five-eighths. If was found in the lower Court that the amount due on the date fixed for payment would be Rs. 8,649. The defendants in their appeal claimed a reduction of this by Rs. 6,450, and the findings in this judgment give them a reduction of Rs. 2864. The plaintiff-respondent will therefore pay seven-sixteenths of the total costs of the appeal and the appellants will pay the rest.
7. The final date for redemption will be the 16th of July 1926. On that date the amount due for principal and interest on the mortgage will be Rs. 6,185-12-0. There is no apparent reason for ordering a different rate of interest to be paid after the fixed date, and still less for the selection of 6 per cent, as the rate. Interest will continue to run at the rate of 9 per cent, per annum. The decree of the lower Court will be modified accordingly.
8. Decree modified.