PANDURANG GANPAT PATIL Vs. PUNJAJI SHAMJI MALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for revision under Section 25, Provincial Small Cause Courts Act. The plaintiff-applicant sued the defendant-non-applicant for recovery of the balance amounting to Rs. 21-3-0 as being due on foot of the bond (Ex. P-1) dated 30th May 1940 for Rs. 300 repayable with interest on 4th December 1940. The lower Court has not only dismissed the plaintiff's suit but has also decreed against him the sum of Rs. 13-3-0 which the defendant claimed as a set-off. This result is said to arise out of the provisions of the C.P. Money-lenders Act, and appears to ' me a little extraordinary. Though the contrary was contended for the applicant by Mr. Kedar I have no doubt that within the meaning of the Money-lenders Act the plaintiff was a "money-lender" and the debt was a "loan". There can, also be no doubt on the admitted facts that the plaintiff failed to furnish up to 20th October 1941, the required statement of accounts and that the lower Court had to disallow interest till then, as it did, under Section 7(c) ibid. But what happened was that there were two repayments which the defendant had voluntarily made, one of Rs. 50 on 7th June 1940, and the other of Rs. 280-11-0 on 18th May 1942 and the lower Court's view is that the resulting excess in the amount repaid, caused by the disallowance made under Section 7(c), could be directed to be paid back to the defendant. The material portion of Section 7 is as reproduced below: Notwithstanding anything contained in any other enactment for the time being in force, in any suit or proceeding relating to a loan-- **** (c) if the Court finds that the provisions of el. (b) of Sub-section (1) of Section 3 have not been complied with by the money-lender, it shall, in computing the amount of interest due upon the loan, exclude every period for which the money-lender omitted duly to furnish the account as required by that clause.

(2.) IN my opinion, the lower Court had, on a true construction of that provision, no such power as has been claimed. The defendant made his repayments on the basis of interest which had been contracted for and the lower Court has also not objected to the rate charged d by the plaintiff. Moreover, Section 7, ibid, did not empower the Court to re-open the repayments made and to reduce the rate of interest, as Section 3, Usurious Loans Act, does. It is true that there is no provision in the Money-lenders Act, like the one in Section 3(5) of the now defunct Reduction of Interest Act expressly forbidding the debtor's claim for refund in respect of interest paid in excess but that consideration is quite neutral and inconclusive.