MUSA HASAFJI USMAN BHAMARDA Vs. KESHAVLAL CHUNILAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application in revision arises out of a suit on a mortgage filed by the five plaintiffs against seven defendants. The present applicant was original defendant No. 1 and he claimed that he was an agriculturist and was held to be such on August 31, 1944. Thereafter the amended Bombay Agricultural Debtors Relief Act was applied to the Godhra Taluka on May 1, 1945, and thereupon the present applicant, defendant No. 1, prayed that the proceedings may be transferred to the Debt Adjustment Board. The learned Judge thought that as the applicant was the only agriculturist-defendant and as the Act did not provide for transfers in cases where only one of the defendants was an agriculturist, the suit could not be transferred to the Board. He therefore rejected the application for transfer, and against that order defendant No. 1 has come in revision.

(2.) The amended Section 37 of the Bombay Agricultural Debtors Relief Act is different in terms from the old Section 37. Under the old section the question whether a defendant is a debtor or not had to be decided by the Court and only after it came to a decision that the defendant was a debtor could the suit or other proceedings be transferred to the Debt Adjustment Board. But Sub-section (1) of new Section 37 is in the following terms:

(3.) The rule will therefore be made absolute with costs both in this Court and in the lower Court.