POHKAR SINGH Vs. MULAIM SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal raising a short point under Secs.3 and 5, Temporary Postponement of Execution of Decrees Act, 1937, which came into force on 1 January 1936. The short facts of the present case are these: The plaintiff obtained a decree for the hundred and fifty odd rupees against certain defendants on 11 February 1931. On 26 January 1934, the plaintiff made an execution application, which was finally disposed of by an order on a date which the Civil Judge of Farrukhabad states to have been 16 November 1935. On 7th May 1941 the present renewed execution application was lodged. In the interval between 1936 and 1941, the Temporary Postponement of Execution of Decrees Act, 1937, had come to pass, and the question involved in this appeal is whether the three entire years during which this Act was in operation can be excluded from the limitation period running against the application of 7 May 1941. By Section 3 (1) of the Act it is provided that All proceedings in execution of any decree for money or for foreclosure or sale in enforcement of a mortgage passed by a Civil Court on the basis of a liability incurred before the passing of this Act, in which the judgment-debtor or any of the judgment-debtors is, at the date of the passing of this Act an agriculturist shall be stayed during the period this Act shall remain in force...

(2.) The stay provided by the Act is, by the joint effect of Sub-sections (1) and (2), of Section 3, unqualified in the case of a judgment-debtor paying less than certain specified amounts of land revenue or rent, while in the case of every other agriculturist, whatever the amount of his land revenue or rent he is entitled to apply to the Court for a stay of execution on making a certain deposit. By Section 5 of the Act it is provided as follows: 5. (1) "In computing the period of limitation prescribed by the Indian Limitation Act, 1908, or any other law for the time being in force, for... (b) the execution of such decree as is referred to in Section 3, and not covered by Section 6, the period during which this Act shall remain in force shall be excluded.

(3.) It is obvious upon the language of these sections that the exclusion of the period during which the Temporary Postponement of Execution of Decrees Act, 1937, remained in force applies to such decrees as are "referred to" in Section 3, provided they are not of the kind excepted by Section 6. Turning to Section 3 (1), the only decrees referred to are any decree for money or for foreclosure or sale in enforcement of a mortgage passed by a Civil Court on the basis of a liability incurred before the passing of this Act, in which the judgment-debtor or any one of the judgment-debtors is, at the date of the passing of this Act, an agriculturist.