KUNJAN KELU Vs. SANKARAN RAMAKRISHNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In these petitions under Art.227 of the Constitution, the question is whether a mortgagor, seeking to discharge a mortgage and lease back, under S.11(6) of the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, 1958 (hereinafter called the Act) is entitled to the benefit of S.5 of the Act.

(2.) The question has been discussed before us at great length, particularly with reference to the retrospective operation of the fiction enacted in S.11(6)(a) of the Act, the absence of an expression to deem the rent stipulated in the lease back to be interest on the mortgage money, the limited nature of the provision for interest in S.11(6)(b) for the period after the commencement of the Act, the significance of the expression 'sums paid or credited towards interest' in S.5(1)(a)(i), the ambit of the provisions in Sub-s.(2) and (6) of S.4 of the Act, and the diverse judicial observations in 1963 KLT 317 , 1963 KLT 332 , 1963 KLT 1093 , 1964 KLT 243 , ILR 1964 (1) Kerala 297 and 1964 KLT 732 . We presume the matter has crystallised now.

(3.) The relevant provisions of the Act read thus: