BANK OF BARODA Vs. MOTI BHAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, the Bank of Baroda, agreed through its Banswara Branch to sanction a demand loan facility in the sum of Rs. 36,000/- in favour of respondent 1. In consideration thereof, respondent 1 executed a demand promissory note in favour of the Rank on June 18, 1973. He also executed a bond hypothecating the standing crop of his lands situated at Khandu and Surjipada in Rajasthan. Respondents 2 and 3 are the guarantors for the repayment of the loan. In order to further secure the repayment of the loan, respondent 1 executed a deed of simple mortgage in favour of the Bank, in respect of the lands at Khandu and Surjipada.

(2.) The respondents having failed to repay the loan, the appellant filed against them a suit in the court of the learned District Judge, Banswara, for recovering a sum of Rs. 52,000/-odd which was due on the loan transaction. Respondents raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the suit on the ground that the claim in the suit was essentially one for enforcing the mortgage executed by them in favour of the Bank and, therefore, the Revenue court had the exclusive jurisdiction to entertain the suit, by reason of the provisions contained in the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 3 of 1955, (hereinafter called "the Act"). That objection was overruled by the learned District Judge but, in a civil revision application filed by the respondents, the High Court upheld it. According to the High Court, "the execution of the mortgage deed by defendant No. 1 in favour of the plaintiff in respect of his tenancy rights in agricultural land also forms the essential part of the cause of action of the plaintiff and as suck the suit is triable by a revenue court." The correctness of this view is questioned by the plaintiff in this appeal by special leave.

(3.) Section 207 of the Act reads thus: