Vidhara

The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881

§38Prior party a principal in respect of each subsequent party

As between the parties so liable as sureties, each prior party is, in the absence of a contract to the contrary, also liable thereon as a principal debtor in respect of each subsequent party. Illustration A draws a bill payable to his own order on B, who accepts. A afterwards indorses the bill to C, C to D, and D to E. As between E and B, B is the principal debtor, and A, C and D are his sureties. As between E and A, A is the principal debtor, and C and D are his sureties. As between E and C, C is the principal debtor and D is his surety.

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Official text: India Code (official)

Official India Code text: The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (26 of 1881), English PDF (bitstream 123456789/15327/1/negotiable_instruments_act,_1881.pdf, 681,124 bytes, sha256 50fe22a1…) fetched directly from indiacode.nic.in (Akamai edge, DNS via dns.google) on 2026-07-29. Extracted via pdftotext 26.07 -bbox and @nexlex/ingest gazette parser. Automated parse; footnotes/amendment history excluded; spot-verified (s. 138 cheque dishonour); full clause-level proofread pending.

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