BABULAL Vs. BASANTLAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent from an order of Bhutt J. (as he then was) dismissing a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution filed by the appellant.

(2.) THE material facts are that the respondent Basantlal made an application under Section 13 of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act, 1951, for recovery of Rs. 889 -2 -0 from the appellant as the price of certain grain sold to him. The claim was decreed ex -parte by the Civil Judge, First Class, Jabalpur, functioning as a Tribunal under the Act. The appellant was unsuccessful in his attempt to have the ex -parte decree set aside. An appeal preferred by him in this Court against the decree was also held to be incompetent. Thereafter in execution proceedings of the decree the appellant raised the objection that the decree was a nullity. On the objection being overruled by the executing Court he moved this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution for quashing the decree.

(3.) IN this appeal, learned counsel for the appellant has repeated before us the contentions advanced on behalf of the appellant before the learned Single Judge. These contentions are devoid of any substance. Section 2 (6) (c) no doubt provides that 'debt' does not include "any pecuniary liability the proof of which depends merely on an oral agreement". The word "merely'' is significant, and what the provision means is that if the proof of any pecuniary liability depends only on an oral agreement and nothing more, then the pecuniary liability would not fall within the definition of the word 'debt'. Here the respondent's claim rested not on an oral agreement alone, but also on the agreement as evidenced by a bill signed by the broker acting as an agent for both the parties. The question as to the evidentiary value that should have been attached to this bill is altogether different and has no bearing on the determination of the question whether any particular liability does or does not fall within the excluding provision referred to above. The learned Single Judge was, therefore, right in holding that the claim made by Basantlal was a 'debt' within the meaning of Section 2(6)(e) and the decree obtained by him was not a nullity.