SANTHAPPA Vs. ESWARAPPA HOLIAPPA BULLA, BY LRSIDDALINGAPPA BULLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question that falls to be decided in these appeals is whether interest payable under a decree passed by a Court in the Bombay Presidency but transferred for execution to a Court in this Province is liable to be scaled down under Section 8 of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act, (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

(2.) The respondent obtained two decrees against the appellant in O.S. No. 167 and 168 of 1923 in the Court of the Additional First Class Subordinate Judge, Dharwar, and got these decrees transferred to the District Court of Bellary for execution as the appellant was residing in Bellary and owned properties there. The decrees were passed on 10 March, 1927, and provided for payment of the amount due in instalments which were, in each case, charged on immoveable properties situate in the Bellary District and carried interest at 9 per cent, per annum. The appellant claiming to be an agriculturist applied to the Court below in the course of the execution proceedings after the Act came into force for scaling down the decrees. The Court declined to grant the relief on the ground that as a Court executing the decrees, it could not interfere with the decrees which could be amended only by the Court which passed them, and the mere fact that the procedure laid down in the Act for the scaling down of decrees was not applicable to Courts in Bombay could not enlarge the powers of the executing Court.

(3.) Mr. Sitarama Rao appearing for the appellant conceded that the appellant was not entitled to claim in full measure the relief provided by Section 8 of the Act, as Section 19 was not applicable to the Court which passed the decrees in question, that is to say, he admitted that the interest due on the debts prior to the decrees and included in them could not be wiped out, as that would clearly amount to going behind the decree and would be beyond the powers of an executing Court; but he contended that there was nothing in the Act to preclude the Court from granting the more limited relief namely, the wiping out of the interest at nine per cent, per annum ordered to be paid from the date of the decrees that is from 10th March, 1927, to 1 October, 1937, and of the further interest due for the subsequent period in excess of the statutory rate of 6 1/4 per cent, allowed under the Act. It was urged that this limited relief the Court below was competent and, indeed, bound to grant under Section 47 of the Civil Procedure Code, as the Court being a Court of this Province was bound to give effect to the provisions of the Act as far as it lay in its power to do so.