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Issues: (i) Whether the company could avoid liability on the footing that the promissory note was executed without a board resolution authorising the borrowing or execution of the renewal instrument; (ii) whether the promissory note and guarantee lacked consideration and were therefore unenforceable, and whether presentment under the Negotiable Instruments Act barred the suit; (iii) whether the guarantor's heirs were liable on the guarantee and, if so, to what extent interest and execution could be enforced against them.
Issue (i): Whether the company could avoid liability on the footing that the promissory note was executed without a board resolution authorising the borrowing or execution of the renewal instrument.
Analysis: The company had admittedly received the loan and had treated the transaction as a continuing banking account with periodic renewals of the promissory note. Even if a specific resolution for the 1959 renewal was not proved, the transaction was not shown to be one which the company itself had not adopted. In matters of internal management, a creditor dealing bona fide with the company is entitled to assume compliance with internal requirements, and a defect in authority does not defeat recovery where the money has gone to the company's benefit.
Conclusion: The company remained liable for repayment of the amount due under the loan transaction.
Issue (ii): Whether the promissory note and guarantee lacked consideration and were therefore unenforceable, and whether presentment under the Negotiable Instruments Act barred the suit.
Analysis: The ledger entries and receipt showed that the amount represented by the renewal note was treated as advanced and credited in the course of the transaction, which constituted consideration in law. Even otherwise, the renewal of an old debt and the creditor's forbearance supplied consideration. The demand by registered letter and the written waiver of presentment prevented the company from relying on non-presentment to defeat the suit. The guarantee, being given for the benefit of the principal debtor and in respect of the same liability, was supported by sufficient consideration.
Conclusion: The promissory note and guarantee were supported by consideration, and the suit was not defeated by want of presentment.
Issue (iii): Whether the guarantor's heirs were liable on the guarantee and, if so, to what extent interest and execution could be enforced against them.
Analysis: The guarantee expressly contemplated continued liability of the guarantor's legal representatives and estate after death. The liability could therefore be enforced against property devolved from the guarantor's estate, but not against the heirs' personal assets or their shares in joint family property. Interest under the guarantee ran only from the date of demand, and where demand was not uniformly proved the court treated demand as made from the date of the suit for all heirs.
Conclusion: The heirs were liable only to the extent of the estate inherited from the guarantor, and interest was confined to the period after the suit was filed.
Final Conclusion: The company's challenge failed, while the heirs obtained partial relief by restriction of the guarantor's liability to inherited estate and by curtailment of pre-suit interest.
Ratio Decidendi: A company cannot repudiate a borrowing that was taken for its benefit merely because a specific internal resolution is not proved, and a guarantee for such liability remains enforceable according to its terms, including against the guarantor's estate where the instrument so provides.