JAWWAD S. KHAWAJA, J.---This appeal impugns the order dated 16-7-2002 passed by the learned Banking Court No.1, Gujranwala. The respondent-Bank filed a suit against the appellant/defendant for recovery of a sum of Rs.2,69,908. The suit was decreed on 16-7-2002.
2. The appellant had filed an application dated 5-6 2002 seeking leave to appear and defend. In the said application the appellant/defendant took up certain pleas by way of defence. It was his case that the Branch Manager, who had filed the suit and verified the plaint, had not been authorized to do so. It was also alleged that the loan documents had not been witnessed in accordance with the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order. Finally, it was contended that the appellant had repaid the finance. The learned Banking Court found such pleas to be untenable.
3. Before us we asked learned counsel for the appellant if signatures on the loan documents were those of the appellant. He conceded that the appellant had singed such documents. On another question, he conceded that the disbursement had been made by the respondent-Bank against cheques drawn by the appellant himself. It was merely argued that the Mobile Credit Officer of the respondent-Bank had obtained signatures of the appellant/defendant on various documents which had thereafter been unauthorisedly utilized by the Bank to support the claim which had been set up in the plaint. We note that this assertion has not been made in the application filed by the appellant for leave to defend.
4. In fact, most of the paragraphs of the plaint have been evasively denied by the appellant in his leave application. In addition to the above, it is noteworthy that although before us it was argued that the officer of the Bank had obtained signatures of the appellant on various documents, in the application for leave to defend there is an outright denial of signatures on any of the financing documents.
5. In view of what has been discussed above, we are not, left in any doubt that the appellant/defendant has been unable to raise any defence which would justify grant of leave to appear and defend. The judgment and decree of the learned Banking Court, for this reason, are not open to exception. Consequently, this appeal is dismissed being without merit.