ATHIYAPPA GOUNDAN Vs. RAMANATHAN CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application to revise the order made by the learned Subordinate Judge of Salem in E.A. No. 261 of 1938 in O.S. No. 52 of 1932.

(2.) The application before the lower Court was presented under Section 19 of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act IV of 1938 to scale down the amount of a mortgage decree. It is admitted that the original mortgage was executed for Rs. 7,000 on the 4 November, 1914, the whole of the mortgage-debt being the price payable by the mortgagors for lands purchased by them from the mortgagees. Subsequent to this mortgage and before the debt was discharged, there was a partition among the mortgagors and after that partition, by consent of parties, the mortgage-debt was split up with the result that under a fresh mortgage deed, Ex. C, security was given only for Rs. 2,500 which was the portion of the debt that fell to the mortgagors under that document. This was executed on the 22nd January, 1925. Under this mortgage deed, the properties that were given as security were not the lands that were originally purchased in 1914 but some of the ancestral properties of the mortgagors under this deed. The decree debt that was sought to be scaled down under Section 19 of the Act was under the decree passed Jo enforce this mortgage.

(3.) The application for scaling down was resisted in the Court below under Section 10, Sub- section 2, Clause 2 of the Act by the decree-holders. According to this clause, nothing contained in Secs.8 and 9 of the Act shall affect any liability for which a charge is provided under Section 55, Clause 4, Sub-clause (b) of the Transfer of Property Act. The objection raised on behalf of the decree-holders was upheld by the learned Subordinate Judge who found that the exemption provided for in this clause clearly indicated that the Act was not intended to benefit debtors whose debts could be under the category of debts referred to in it.