NANNOO MAL Vs. HOTI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application for revision against an order passed by the Civil Judge of Muttra under Section 30, U.P. Agriculturists Relief Act. A preliminary decree for sale, on foot of a mortgage deed, was passed on the 12 January 1932. It was followed by a final decree on the 26 August 1932. The interest stipulated in the deed was 12 per cent, per annum, compound able every six months. The interest at that rate was decreed by the Court passing the decree. It also allowed future interest which was to run from 8 May 1935 at the rate of 6 per cent, simple. The U.P. Agriculturists Relief Act came into force in 1935. Thereafter the mortgagor (judgment-debtor) applied under Section 30 for the decree being amended as regards interest. The lower Court remarked that a small sum of Rs. 300 swelled to Rs. 1,200 on the date of the suit. It reduced the rate of interest to 6 per cent, per annum simple from the date of the mortgage deed. As regards future interest, it was reduced from 6 per cent, to 3 per cent. In the present application for revision it is pointed out by the mortgagee that the lower Court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the rate at which interest had been decreed originally for the period ending 31 December 1929, and that Section 30, under which alone the Court could amend the decree, empowered it to interfere with the rate of interest only from the period beginning with 1 January 1930. This contention is undoubtedly right. Section 30(1) provides that no debtor shall be liable to pay interest on a loan taken before the Act came into force at a rate higher than that specified in Schedule 3 for the period from 1 January 1930, till such date as may be fixed by the Local Government in the Gazette in this behalf. There is no doubt as regards the date up to which interest at the rate mentioned in Section 30 can be allowed. The only question is whether the concessional rate of interest should run from the date of the bond or from 1 January 1930. The point is too plain, to need any further discussion, and I hold that the order of the lower Court in this respect was wrong.

(2.) As already mentioned, the lower Court has reduced future interest, originally allowed at the rate of 6 per cent, from 8 May 1936, to 3 percent. Future interest can be reduced under Section 4, which provides that the rate at which future interest may be allowed in any decree for payment of money or for sale in default of payment of money or for foreclosure, shall not exceed the rate notified by the Local Government in the Gazette. It is not disputed that the rate so notified was 3 1/2 per cent, on the 8 May 1935, from which date future interest is to run. In my opinion Section 4 is confined to oases in which a decree is to be passed after the Act came into force, and does not at all apply to cases in which a decree previously passed is to be amended under Section 30(2), which provides: If a decree has already been passed on the basis of a loan and remains unsatisfied in whole or in part, the Court which passed the decree shall on the application of the judgment-debtor amend it by reducing, in accordance with the provisions of Sub-section (1), the amount decreed on account of interest.

(3.) There is no provision anywhere else in the Act which provides for an amendment of the decree already passed, and section 30(2) is imperative and confers no discretion upon the Court as regards future interest. If it has been granted by the decree sought to be amended at a rate higher than the scheduled rate, it will certainly be reduced as part of the order according to Section 30(1), but Sub-section (2) does not justify importing Section 4 into consideration when the Court acts under Section 30(2). Learned Counsel for the judgment-debtor contends that Section 4 applies to every decree which was passed before the Court comes to consider the question of future interest, and that in acting under Section 30(2), the Court has to consider, inter alia, the rate at which future interest is to be allowed. He lays stress on the words the rate at which future interest may be allowed in any decree for payment of money...passed against an agriculturist.