RENTALA GANGA RAJU Vs. BIKKINA BULLI RAMAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The thirty-ninth defendant in O.S. No, 60 of 1923 on the file of the Subordinate Judge of Rajahmundry is the petitioner before us. In that case a mortgage-decree was passed against the petitioner and others and that decree was appealed against to this Court. The appeal was dismissed on 13 February, 1936.

(2.) When the decree-holder sought to execute the decree, the proceedings were got stayed by the petitioner on 29 September, 1938, by an application under Section 20 of Madras Act IV of 1938 (the Madras Agriculturists Debt Relief Act); and on 14 April, 1938, he filed an application under Section 19 of the said Act praying to scale down the decree-debt and amend the decree accordingly. This application was filed to the lower Court within the period mentioned in Section 20 of the Act. But that Court held that it had no jurisdiction to deal with the application and returned the petition for presentation to the proper Court.

(3.) The petition has therefore been presented to this Court, and a Civil Revision Petition has also been filed by the petitioner to revise the order of the lower Court. Section 20 says that the application for relief under Section 19 should be made "to the Court which passed the decree" within sixty days after the application for stay has been granted. That period has now elapsed and the respondent, the decree-holder, takes the objection that the petition under Section 19 presented to this Court is barred by time. If the lower Court has jurisdiction to entertain the application under Section 19, then the question of limitation does not arise because the application before it was presented in time. The question therefore for our consideration is whether the lower Court had jurisdiction to entertain this application under Section 19 of the Madras Agriculturists Debt Relief Act.