SHANKAR RAMKRISHNA CHOLKAR Vs. KRISHNAJI GANESH BADE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is said the at all events, with regard to one of the mortgages in suit namely that executed in the year 1881 the plaintiff is entitled to maintain this suit because the second clause of Section 2 of the Dekkhan Agriculturists Relief Act provides that "the term agriculturist when used with reference to any suit or proceeding shall include a person who, when any part of the liability which forms the subject of that suit or proceeding was incurred, was an agriculturist within the meaning of that word as then defined by law". "Then" defined by law relates to the time when any part of the liability was incurred. We, therefore, have to look to the definition of the word agriculturist in the year 1881, the date of the mortgage in question.

(2.) "Agriculturist" by Act XXIII of 1881 amending the principal Act was defined to be a "person who, when or after incurring any liability, the subject of any proceeding under the Act, by himself his servants or tenants earned or earns his livelihood wholly or partially by agriculture carried on within the limits of the said districts." In order to ascertain what is meant by the said district we turn to Section 1 of the Act which in the year 1881 provided that the rest of the Act extends only to the Districts of Poona, Satara, Sholapur, and Ahmednagar. It follows that the plaintiff whose land and whose residence was in Ratnagiri was not an agriculturist within the meaning of Act XXIII of 1881.

(3.) For these reasons we affirm the decree of the lower Court and dismiss this appeal with costs. Only one set of costs.