SYED RAZAUR RAHMAN Vs. UDIT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These three applications in revision arise out of proceeding for execution of rent decrees. They are against three different orders of three different Courts in three different oases between different parties. They have been heard together as the question involved in all of them is the same. In each of them the executing Court has reduced the amount of decree for the purpose of execution according to the directions given in Section 15 of the Bihar Restoration of Bakasht Lands and Reduction of Arrears of Rent Act, 1938, (Act 9 of 1938). The decree-holders in each case have come up in revision. The Provincial Legislature by amending the Bihar Tenancy Act and the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act have made provisions for reduction of rents of raiyats. The raiyats under certain circumstances have been authorized to apply for reduction of rents and the officer deputed for the purpose is directed to reduce rent on certain basis. Act 9 of 1938 provides among others that when rent has once been reduced under the provisions of Section 112 or Section 112-A, Bihar Tenancy Act or under Section 85, Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, the landlord will not be entitled to recover in any proceeding rent at a rate in excess of the rate which has been fixed after reduction under the provisions mentioned above.

(2.) It goes further and provides that even if no application has been made for reduction of rent and that rent has not been reduced by revenue authorities, the landlord in any suit or proceeding will not be entitled to realize more rent than would have been fixed after reduction if the raiyat had applied under Section 112- A, Bihar Tenancy Act, and Section 85, Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act. This however applies for arrears of rent due up to a certain year. Thus, on the one hand they have provided machinery for reduction of rent on the application of the raiyat and on the other by Act 9 of 1938 they have made it impossible for the landlord to realize for the previous years also rent at a higher rate than has been fixed after reduction or would have been fixed if the tenant had put in an application.

(3.) In all these three cases the rent of the raiyat has been reduced and the learned Munsif in each case has reduced the decree on the basis of the reduced rent. In other words he has refused to execute the decrees for previous years for a sum in excess of the amount which was payable after the reduction of the rent. In the first place in my opinion these applications are not maintainable. It is the (settled practice of this Court that revisional powers are not exercised in those cases in which a party entitled to appeal has not appealed. In all these three cases, the orders of the learned Munsifs were appealable. They obviously came under Section 47, Civil P.C. Mr. B.N. Mitter who appears for one of the petitioners contended that the learned Munsif amended the decree and that the order of amendment was not appealable. In whatever form the order of the Munsif may be, in fact the effect was that he refused to execute the decree for the sum which was mentioned in it and proceeded to execute it only after reducing it according to the direction given in Section 15 of Act 9 of 1938. It was really a question of execution, satisfaction and discharge of decree and as I have said obviously come under Section 47 and an appeal lay to the District Judge. The petitioners not having appealed cannot invoke the revisional powers of this Court.