NIRODA PRASAD GHOSH Vs. DURLABH CHANDRA GHORUI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Language of Section 32 is clear and has been strictly followed by the court below. The Act sets a limitation to the interest payable and provides as to how calculations for the same are to be made. The loan or repayment in kind is to be valued according to the market price at every stage and calculations made on that basis. This is what the court has done.

(2.) This is a Rule against a decree of the Additional Subordinate Judge, Hooghly, reversing a decree of the Munsif, Arambagh, and dismissing the Plaintiff's suit in a case which raises the question of interpretation of Section 32 of the Bengal Money-lenders Act.

(3.) The suit was for recovery of the price of paddy borrowed in instalments from Baishakh 1349, to Agrahayan 1349, the total amounting to 7 Italians odd or approximately 64 maunds. The amount was repayable in kind in Phalgun, 1350. The hatchita relating to the transaction shows that, on Phalgun 13 and 21, 1350 B.S., paddy to the total of 3 Kahans odd were delivered by the Defendants and then again the following year on Phalgun 24 and 28, one kahan odd was. repaid. The learned Subordinate Judge has applied the provisions of Section 32 of the Act by calculating the principal of the loan on the basis of the total value of 7 kahans odd or 64 maunds at Rs. 2-8 per maund, the market-rate at the time of the loan. In the year of repayment, which was after, the floods of 1942, the price of paddy had risen to the extraordinary figure of Rs. 20 per maund. He, therefore, calculates in cash that, at that date, the amount repaid was some Rs. 670. The following year the value per maund was Rs. 9 and hence the total amount calculated in cash repaid by the borrower was Rs. 787. He has, therefore, naturally dismissed the Plaintiff's suit.