MADANAPALLI LAKSHMIKANTHA NIDHI LIMITED BY OFFICIAL LIQUIDATOR SRI K VENKATA RAO Vs. KATTE RAGHUNATHACHARLU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Madanapalli Lakshmikantha Nidhi, Limited, by its liquidator is the petitioner in this Court. The order of the lower Court sought to be revised is one dismissing an execution application in a small cause suit on the ground that the application was barred by limitation. The decree was passed on nth November, 1936, for a sum of Rs. 156-4-0 with further interest and costs. The first application, so far as I can gather, was S.E.P. No. 160 of 1937, which appears to have been struck off on 12 October, 1937. The execution application out of which the present revision arises was filed on the 18 October, 1940, more than three years from the date on thich the previous execution application was struck off. The ground upon which the decree- holder sought to save the present execution application was by reference to a petition filed by one of the judgment-debtors before the Debt Conciliation Board, a copy of which is exhibited as Ex. A. In that petition before the Debt Conciliation Board some other debts due to the present petitioner decree-holder were mentioned, but the decree debt which is sought to be recovered in the present execution proceedings was not mentioned. The lower Court held that as the decree debt now under execution was not mentioned by the debtor in his application before the Board, Section 27 of the Debt Conciliation Act did not apply and that therefore the execution application was out of time. Section 27(1) runs thus: In calculating the period of limitation for any suit filed in, or proceedings before, a Civil Court for the recovery of a debt which was the subject of any proceedings under this Act, the time during which such proceedings were pending as well as the time taken for the obtaining of certified copies of the order of the Board shall be excluded.

(2.) The question therefore is whether the decree debt in question was the subject of the proceedings under the Act.

(3.) From an examination of Section 10 and the other relevant sections of the Act it seems to me that even debts not specified by the debtor in his petition to the Board should also be taken to be the subject of the proceedings under the Act., It is said that the stage of Section 10 was reached in this case. Section 10, Clause (1) states, If, after examining the debtor, it is in the opinion of the Board, desirable to attempt to effect a settlement between him and his creditors, a notice shall be issued and served or published in the manner prescribed, calling upon every creditor of the debtor to submit a statement of debts owed to such creditor by the debtor....