SOMABHAI SHANABAI PATEL Vs. NARANDAS ZAVERDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a civil revisional application from an order made by the Civil Judge (Senior Division) Nadiad. The applicant made an application that a suit which was pending before the learned Judge should be transferred to the Court set up by the Bombay Agricultural Debtors' Relief Act, 1947, under Section 19 of that Act and that application was rejected by the learned Judge.

(2.) THE facts may be briefly stated. THE opponent filed a suit in the Court of the Civil Judge (Senior Division) Nadiad, on July 24, 1946, claiming from the petitioner Rs. 29,999 as a debt due at the foot of accounts subsisting between him and the petitioner. This debt was alleged to have been incurred between the dates January 20, 1945, and December 15, 1945. On July 9, 1947, the petitioner made an application to the Court for transfer of his suit to the Court under the Bombay Agricultural Debtors' Relief Act, and. the question that has been argued before us by Mr. Patel is that the learned Judge was wrong in refusing the application, that the learned Judge had no jurisdiction to proceed with the suit, and the proper Court which was competent to try the matter was the Court set up by the Bombay Agricultural Debtors' Relief Act.

(3.) SECTION 19 (2) contains a provision that where an application made is under SECTION 4 or a statement submitted pursuant to that application under SECTION 14 includes a debt in respect of which a suit is pending, then the Court shall issue a notice to the civil Court, and on the receipt of such notice the pending suit is to be transferred. Here again the assumption is that the application made to the Court under SECTION 4 was an application which was within time. No Court can issue a notice under Sub-section (2) unless the application made was an application which was not barred by limitation under SECTION 4.Sub-section (3) provides that when a transfer has taken place either under Sub-section (1) or Sub-section (2) of SECTION 19, the Special Court shall proceed as if an application under SECTION 4 had been made to it. Here again the Court is empowered when the transfer has been made to proceed on the footing and on the basis as if an application has been made under SECTION 4 of the Act. But the Court could not deal with these transferred suits or appeals or applications unless it was competent, unless the application if made to it under SECTION 4 had been within time.