A PALANIVEL CHETTIAR Vs. R ELUMALAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The judgment-debtor, defendant in O.S. 250 of 1975 on the file of the District Munsif, Coimbatore, is the petitioner in this revision. The decree-holder, plaintiff in the suit, is the respondent herein. A money decree was passed on 19-12-1978. On 19-8-1982, in E.A. 1507 of 1982, full satisfaction of the decree was recorded. On 21-8-1982, the decree-holder took out an application, I.A. 3471 of 1982 to amend the decree to incorporate the award of interest at the rate of 9 per cent per annum from 29-5-1972 to 19-12-1978 and thereafter at the rate of 6 per cent per annum and to include costs of Rs. 267. This application has been allowed by the Court below, following a pronouncement of a single Judge of the Patna High Court in Shyamal Bihari v. Girish Narain, AIR 1962 Pat 116. This revision is directed against the orders of the court below.

(2.) Mr. S. Desikan, learned counsel for the judgment-debtor, would submit that once full satisfaction has been entered, the decree becomes extinct, the Court becomes functus officio so far as that decree is concerned and thereafter, it is not competent to ask for an amendment of the decree in the manner asked for by the decree-holder. As against this, Mr. M. N. Sundararajan, learned counsel for the decree-holder, would submit placing reliance on the pronouncement in Shyamal Bihari v. Girish Narain, AIR 1962 Pat 116, that the powers of the Court for amendment of a decree under S.152, C.P. Code, are wide and the court will not become functus officio with regard to its powers of amendment of decree even though there has been a full satisfaction thereof earlier.

(3.) The contentions raised by the learned counsel oblige me to make an analysis of the available case law on the subject to find out the correct principle to be applied in contingencies as in the present case. Once a decree gets fully satisfied and discharged, the decree becomes extinct and dead so far as the court is concerned, and unless there is scope for resuscitating the same in accordance with law and it gets resuscitated as such, neither the party could seek nor the Court could indulge in any amendment of such a decree which has become non est in the eye of law. This appears to me to be the basic principle, which should govern the question of amendment of a decree. When the decree has been wiped out by the full satisfaction and discharge of the same, where is the question of amending it? Amendment presupposes the existence of a decree, which is found to be incorrect or infirm or which is irreconcilable with the judgment, and on those grounds, or on some other analogous ground, amendment is sought for. But when the decree as it stood has become extinct and dead in the eye of law by full satisfaction and discharge of the same, the Court will lack jurisdiction to order amendment of such a decree. It would be a different matter if by due process of law the recording of full satisfaction is nullified and the decree stands resurrected. The question is not one of scope of the wide powers of court to order amendment. The question is as to when the power is available and is to be exercised. Courts are not vested with the powers to exercise them inexpediently leading to incongruous results. To touch and reopen a decree to have the desired amendments incorporated in it, at the instance of a party after the decree has become fully satisfied, discharged and wiped out will certainly lead to incongruous results. The processes which already got completed and rights which accrued thereunder on the basis of the unamended decree will have to hang in the air and a fresh process on the basis of the amended decree may be resorted to, to the prejudice and chagrin of the party concerned. In the words of Lord Watson in Hatton v. Harris, 1892 AC 547 -