SITA RAM SINGH Vs. GAYA PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's application in revision arising out of proceedings under Section 12, U. P. Agriculturists' Relief Act (27 of 1934) read with Section 9, U. P. Debt Redemption Act (13 of 1940). The predecessors-n-interest of the applicant executed a usufructuary mortgage, which was sought to be redeemed in the present case, in the year 1855. One of the terms of the mortgage was that the profits were to be taken in lieu of interest. It was not a self-liquidating mortgage. The application under Section 12, 'U. P. Agriculturists' Relief Act read with Section 9 of the Debt Redempion Act was filed in the year 1946 and it was claimed that the entire mortgage, money had been paid up by the usufruct, calculating the same in accordance with the provisions of Section 9, U. P. Debt Redemption Act.

(2.) The trial Court allowed the application and passed a decree in favour of the applicants holding that the entire mortgage money had been paid up by the usufruct. In appeal it was held that the application was barred by time and consequently it was dismissed. In this application in revision the only point for consideration is whether the application of the applicants under Section 12, U. P. Agriculturists' Relief Act, was time-barred. Article 148, Limitation Act provides a period of 60 years for redemption of a usufructuary mortgage. The Article runs as follows: "148. Against a mortgagee to redeem Sixty years When the right to redeem or to recover poor to recover possession of immoveable property mortgaged.

(3.) A suit for redemption of the mortgage in dispute became barred in the year 1915, and by virtus of Section 28 Limitation. Act the mortgagor having lost his right to have possession of the property by redemption, the title to the property became vested in the mortgagee and he became the owner of the property in 1915. It is not suggested that there was any provision for the mortgage becoming self-liquidating prior to 1915. The Agriculturists' Relief Act and the Debt Redemption Act came into force in 1935 and 1941 respectively. They allow for redemption of the mortgages but there is nothing in the Acts to show that their provisions apply to mortgages, the right of redemption of which had already been lost and the mortgagees had no longer remained mortgagees but had become owners of the property mortgaged. No doubt the Agriculturists' Relief Act and the Debt Redemption Act do affect vested rights and in that sense they are retrospective in so far as they affect the rights of the mortgagees in mortgages subsisting on the dates on which the Acts were passed, but they cannot, in our opinion, affect the rights of mortgagees who had before their commencement ceased to be mortgagees and had become owners of the property in their possession.