AUDHAVARAPU RAMAMURTI Vs. RATUALA KULAMANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the decree-holders against an order of the learned Subordinate Judge, Berhampore, allowing an application by the judgment-debtors under Section 19, Madras Agriculturists Relief Art. (4 of 1938) and scaling down the decree. The appellants obtained, on 19 November 1928, a final decree for a sum of Rs. 12,349-10-11 in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Berhampore, in a suit upon a mortgage. The mortgaged property was situated within the province of Madras, and has remained within the province of Madras after the formation of the province of Orissa. The learned Subordinate Judge allowed the application and reduced the amount of the decree to Rs. 3259-15-0 plus Rs. 884-1-0 for costs, by his order, dated 12 October 1938, which was passed in Execution Petition No. 2 of 1937 filed on 21 January 1937, and is the order under appeal.

(2.) The point taken for the appellants is that the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act has no extra-territorial application, and as the Subordinate Judge, Berhampore, is now a Court within the province of Orissa he had no jurisdiction to entertain this application under an Act applying purely to the province of Madras. In my opinion, this contention must succeed. Section 2 of the Act in question says: "It extends to the whole of the province of Madras." Section 19 is as follows: Where before the commencement of this Act, a Court has passed a decree for the repayment of a debt, it shall, on the application of any judgment-debtor who is an agriculturist or in respect of a Hindu joint family debt, on the application of any member of the family whether or not he is the judgment-debtor or on the application of the decree-holder, apply the provisions of this Act to such decree and shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Civil P. C., 1908, amend the decree accordingly or enter satisfaction as the case may be, provided that all payments made or amounts recovered, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, in respect of any such decree shall first be applied in payment of all costs as originally decreed to the creditor.

(3.) This section clearly contemplates an application to the Court which passed the decree, but in saying that a Court which has passed a decree for the repayment of a debt shall do so and so the Act must be taken to mean a Court of the province of Madras which has passed a decree, because it is plainly not open to the Provincial Government of Madras to pass an enactment to prescribe the procedure of the Courts of another province. This was the view taken by Sir Trevor Harries, then Chief Justice of the Patna High Court, in a similar application heard by him and decided on 20 September 1940: Civil Revision No. 50 of 1939. There an application was made for revision of an order of the Subordinate Judge of Cuttack, dismissing an application by a judgment-debtor under Section 19, Madras Agriculturists Relief Act.