BHAGAWAN DAYAL SAHU Vs. CHANDULAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application challenging an order made by the Subordinate Judge of Darjeeling on 29 May 1937. The matter is intituled as an application under Section 224, Government of India Act, 1936 and Section 115, Civil P.C. As regards that, we desire to say at the outset that although Section 224, Government of India Act, 1935 (not 1936 as stated) contains in effect a reproduction of the terms of Section 107 of the previous Government of India Act, it also contains a Proviso which makes it clear that Section 224 has no application of itself to legal proceedings at all. It follows therefore that if any relief is to be obtained in revision, it must be obtained under Section 115, Civil P.C., or not at all.

(2.) The order complained of was one refusing to stay a suit which has been started by a number of persons of the name of Shaha in the Court, of the Subordinate Judge of Darjeeling against a number of persons by the name of Agarwalla. All the plaintiffs and originally all the defendants, so we are told, resided and carried on business at Kurseong in the District of Darjeeling. The suit was one for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 26,855-15-0. It was instituted as long ago as 16 November 1935 and pursued its ordinary course until 3 May 1937 when the defendants prayed for time to compromise and succeeded in getting an adjournment until 31 May 1937 and it was then intimated that no further time would be granted. It seems that one of the defendants Bhagawan Dayal, who is the petitioner before us, had quarrelled with his co-sharers, the other defendants, and was no longer in alliance with them. It appears that he went off and claimed to reside at Maldah and on that basis presumably he made an application on 25 May 1937 under the provisions of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act, 1935, to a Board established under the provisions of the Act at Parbatipore, claiming apparently that he was a debtor within the meaning of the Act, and so entitled to the benefit of the Act-despite the fact that the amount which had been claimed in the suit in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Darjeeling was a sum of over Rs. 26,000. The Chairman of the Board forthwith, and as it seems without the matter being formally brought before the Board at all, on the very same day by a letter of that date, namely 25 May 1937 sent a notice to the Subordinate Judge of Darjeeling requiring under the provisions of Section 34 of the Act a stay of the suit then pending in that Judge's Court. Thereupon this remarkable situation arose that an Agricultural Board was being invited to take and indeed was already taking (by its Chairman) action which had the effect of holding up a suit involving a claim to over Rs. 26,000 solely upon the ex parte statement of one of the defendants that he was a "debtor" within the meaning of the Act. On 29 May 1937 the notice which had been served upon the Subordinate Judge of Darjeeling by means of the letter of 25 May 1937 was considered by the Subordinate Judge, and we find that the order recorded on that date begins thus: Received notices under Section 34, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act, 1936 from the President, Parbatipore Debt Settlement Board, District Maldah, for stoppage (quoting the words of the section obviously) of this suit.

(3.) The learned Judge refused to consider himself bound by that notice on several grounds the first of which was that the defendants were not debtors within the meaning of Section 2 (9). The learned Judge stated: From the notice, it does not appear if all the defendants joined in the petition to Debt Settlement Board under Section 9 of the Act.