CHANDU NAIR Vs. ABDULKHADER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The revision petitioners are the decree holders, and seek to revise the orders by the lower courts under S.7 of the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, No. XXXI of 1958, hereinafter referred to as the Act. The ground taken in the revision petition is that the debt has been exempted from the operation of the Act, and the two lower courts have erred in exercising powers under the aforesaid section.

(2.) It is not disputed that the parties to this petition with one Purushothoma Pai, were partners and the firm was dissolved by a document, which is dated February 24, 1955. The parties had in the aforesaid deed divided the assets into two schedules, A and B, and further provided the properties in the A schedule to go to the partner, who is the respondent in this petition, and in B schedule to the other three partners. The value of the properties set apart in the A schedule was fixed at Rs. 18,499-10-3; and, and after deducting what would be the shares in them of the person, to whom the properties were being given, Rs. 9,228-1-8 was found to be the value of others shares, and after adding other amounts due from the respondent to the latter sharers, Rs. 10,799-9-8 was found to be due from the respondent, which was charged on the A schedule properties and made also personally recoverable. The properties so valued comprised a bus, the goodwill of the firm, furniture, cash in hand, and amount in the Canara Industrial and Banking Syndicate. It is obvious that apart from the last two items, whose total came only to Rs. 37-8-0, the other properties of the A schedule were the shares of the partners in movables. The respondent, not having paid the partners entitled to the aforesaid amount, who are the revision petitioners filed O.S. 317/57 and obtained a decree. The respondent thereafter applied under S.7 of the Act, claimed to be an agriculturist, and asked the decree to be amended as required by the Act. The revision petitioners objected on the ground that the debt due from the judgment - debtor was exempt from the definition of the word debt under S.2 (c) (vi), but the objection has been rejected. Hence this petition.

(3.) The petitioners learned advocate has urged that the shares of the partners in the assets of the partnership are goods, the respondent having got these shares by agreement, the money due is therefore, price and the goodwill as well as the bus have been bought for the purposes of carrying the business. In these circumstances, the price is the exempted debt and the decision asked to be revised is incorrect.