HIRANAND OJHA Vs. SATISH CHANDRA ROY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We have considered every section of the Chota Nagpur Encumbered Estates Act VI of 1876, and the rules made thereunder, and we are clearly of opirtion that this suit is not maintainable. The Manager is the principal necessary party and there is no allegation that he, in making the order he did in pursuance of the Act was not acting bona fide. Section 22, therefore, will alone bar the suit. But it is clear from the provisions of Section 3 and Section 12 and other sections that during the time that the estate is held by the Revenue Authorities under the Act the Civil Court has no jurisdiction to interfere on a suit brought by the creditors. The creditors have their remedy against any order of the Manager before the Deputy Commissioner and before the Commissioner. As a matter of fact in this case they went to the Deputy Commissioner and got the only grievance, which they had urged, removed. The Deputy Commissioner allowed them to retain possession of the portion of the property which they had purchased under a decree for Rs. 1,100.

(2.) The other question, which was raised before the Commissioner and which is practically the question before us was that the Manager had no jurisdiction to reduce the interest to 8 per cent. This objection was not pressed before the Deputy Commissioner, who held that the reduction of the interest to 3 per cent, was the only possible means of saving the estate from insolvency. Now it is obvious that the decree of the Civil Court could not have exceeded the principal of the original debt, except by the accumulation of interest. It was, therefore, the only question that had to be decided, whether the interest which had merged in the decree must be taken to be a part of the principal. That point was apparently argued, but not precisely in that form before the Deputy Commissioner, and it was agreed on all sides that 3 per cent, interest was the only possible basis upon which the creditors could get any relief. If he had not accepted this, the estate would have had to be restored to the owner and then the jurisdiction of the Civil Court undoubtedly would have revived; but, as the Judge points out, that would be flying in the face of the Act and undoing the benefits which the Act has intended to confer, and it is obvious that in every case this must be so; for, if the Manager finds that the accumulation of interest, whether under a Civil Court decree or under any other kind of debt, would render the estate insolvent, then he would have at once to get the Deputy Commissioner to release the estate. If, therefore, he did not possess the power to reduce the interest on the original debt as contracted, the operation of the Act would, as the learned Judicial Commissioner has pointed out, not only frequentey but in every case prove infructuous.

(3.) The appeal is, therefore, dismissed with costs. Walmsley, J.