JUDGMENT
Chamier, J.
1. This was a suit on a mortgage, dated June 29th, 1890. The sum secured was Rs. 20. The mortgagor agreed to pay interest at Rs. 5 per cent. per mensem. More than twenty years after the mortgagee brought this suit for Rs. 262 on account of principal and interest, The first Court cut the interest down to simple interest at the rate of Rs. 2 per cent. per mensem up to the date of the suit and allowed interest at Rs. 6 per cent. on the sum due on the date of the suit. That decree was affirmed by the District Judge. In second appeal, it is contended that there was no ground on which the contractual rate of interest could be cut down. It seems that the defendants in the first instance denied the genuineness of the bond. When they saw that this plea would not be accepted, they put in a petition, after all the evidence had been recorded, alleging that the contractual rate of interest was too high and should not be allowed. The defendants never pleaded undue influence at any stags of the case but the Courts below seem to have held that the mortgage was obtained by undue influence because it appeared that previous to the transaction in question money had been advanced by the plaintiff to the defendant at lower rates of interest. It appears to me that this is no ground for holding that undue influence was exercised by the plaintiff in the transaction now in question. If the defendant had agreed in the mortgage-deed to pay interest at the rate of Rs. 1-8 per cent. per mensem, compounded annually, no one would have suggested that the rate of interest was unconscionable. The sum claimed by the plaintiff does not exceed what he would have been entitled to claim at the rate of Rs. 1-8 per cent. per mensem compounded yearly. I can discover no ground upon which the rate of interest can be cut down. Therefore in lieu of the decree of the Court below I give the plaintiff a decree for Rs. 262, the amount due at the date of the suit; but in view of the large sum decreed on account of interest, I decline to award interest after the institution of the suit. The plaintiff will get his costs in the first Court on Rs. 262 and in the lower Appellate Court on Rs. 142.
