KATAMBOT THAZHATHE KOVILA KATH VIKKARA VELLODI, MANAGING PARTNER OF K VIKKARA VELLODI AND BROTHERS Vs. BANKALATH AVARAN KUTTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of proceedings instituted under Secs.15 and 19 of Act IV of 1938, a reference to Order 21, Rule 2 of the Civil Procedure Code, being also added in the application. The applicants in the trial Court were persons liable to make periodical payments known as panaya purappad and the present appellant was an assignee of the right to collect those payments. We have no doubt held that these periodical payments of panaya purappad are not rent for the purpose of Section 15 of Act IV of 1938, and also that an assignee of the right to collect arrears of rent is not a jenmi or intermediary for the purpose of the same section. The trial Court, however, treated this payment as one of rent and treated the respondent as a person standing in the position of a jenmi or intermediary and recorded satisfaction of the decree for arrears of this periodical payment, except for the amount of costs, on the deposit of the arrears for the two years contemplated in Section 15. The decree- holder, mistaking his remedy, filed an appeal before the District Judge and no objection was taken as to the maintainability of the appeal. The appeal was dismissed and a second appeal has been filed here.

(2.) The question is whether the second appeal lies. No appeal is, of course, provided in the Act. We have repeatedly held that when a decree has been amended under Section 19 of the Act, an appeal lies under the ordinary law. against the amended decree, though no appeal lies against an order recording full satisfaction of the decree under that section. There is no procedure prescribed in the Act for dealing with decrees for rent, though clearly under Section 15 of the Act rent can be discharged by the procedure in that section even though it has been decreed and Section 16, expressly safeguards any amount decreed as costs. In a case Ramadoss Reddiar V/s. Muniswami Reddiar (1940) 2 M.L.J. 825, this Bench observed that a procedure similar to that laid down for debts by Section 19 could be invoked under Section 15 for the discharge of a decree for rent and this observation has been followed in a number of cases where the Court was actually concerned with the discharge of a decree for rent. An instance is Venkata Rajagopala Krishna Yachendra Bahadur V/s. Venkata Seshacharlu (1941) 2 M.L.J. 655.

(3.) It has been argued before us that, when under Section 19 a decree for a debt is amended and the resultant amended decree for a lesser amount is not satisfactory to either party, an appeal lies against the amended decree; therefore it is contended when under the analogous procedure for dealing with rents, the amount due under the decree is partly satisfied by the statutory deposit and satisfaction of the old arrears and there remains a decree for costs, the effect of this process is, in fact to alter the original decree by the cancellation of part of its provisions and to substitute for it a decree for costs only, recording satisfaction of the balance. This process, it is argued is nothing more than the passing of an amended decree which would give rise to a right of appeal. We find ourselves unable to accept this contention.