Case: State Bank of Travancore Vs. Mohammed Mohammed Khan

The respondent had an overdraft Account with the Erattupetta Branch of the Kottayam Orient Bank Ltd., at the foot of which he owed a sum of over Rs. 3000/- to the Bank. The said Bank which was a Banking Company as defined inthe Banking Regulation Act, 1949, was amalgamated with the appellant Bank with effect from June 17, 1961 in pursuance of a scheme of amalgamation prepared by the Reserve Bank of India in exercise of the powers conferred by section 45 (4) of the Banking Regulation Act and sanctioned by the Central Government under sub-section (7) of section 45. Upon the amalgamation, all assets and liabilities of the Kottayam Orient Bank stood transferred to the appellant Bank. The notification containing the scheme of amalgamation was published in the Gazette of India Extra-ordinary dated May 16, 1961appellant filed a suit (O.S. No. 28 of 1963) in the Sub Court, Meenachil, against the respondent for recovery of th e amount due from him in the overdraft Account with the Kottayam Orient Bank, the right to recover which had come to be vested in the appellant as a result of the aforesaid scheme of amalgamation. That suit was decreed in favour of the appellant, but when it took out execution proceedings in the Sub-Court, Kottayam, the respondent filed a petition under section 8 of the Act seeking amendment of the decree in terms of the provisions of the Act. The respondent claimed that he was an agriculturist within the meaning of the Act and was therefore entitled to the benefit of its provisions, including those relating to the scaling down of debts. The learned Subordinate Judge assumed, what was evidently not controverted, that the respondent was an agriculturist. But the learned Judge held that the respondent was not entitled to the benefit of the provision regarding scaling down of the debt because the debt, having been once owed by him to the Kottayam Orient Bank Ltd., which was a Banking Company as defined inthe Banking Regulation Act, 1949, was outside the purview of section 5 of the Act which provided for the scaling down of debts owed by agriculturists. According to the learned Judge, the respondent was only entitled to the benefit of the proviso to section 2 (4) (l) of the Act under which the amount could be repaid in eight half-yearly installments. Since the relief which the respondent had asked for was that his debt should be scaled down and since he was held not entitled to that relief, his application was dismissed by the learnedrespondent preferred an appeal to the High Court of Kerala, the maintainability of which was challenged by the appellant on the ground that no appeal lay against the order passed by the Subordinate Judge on the application filed by the respondent under section 8 of the Act. The High Court accepted the preliminary objection but granted permission to the respondent to convert the appeal into a Civil Revision Application and dealt with it as such. In view of the general importance of the questions involved in the matter, the revision application was referred by a Division Bench to the Fullwas contended in the High Court on behalf of the appellant, Bank that the debt owed to it by the respondent was excluded from the operation of the Act by reason of section 2 (4) (a) (ii) and section 2 (4) (1) of the Act. By its judgment dated February 1, 1978 the High Court rejected that contention, allowed the Revision Application and held that the respondent was entitled to all the relevant benefits of the Act, including the benefit scaling down of the debt. The Bank questions the correctness of that judgment in this appeal.

Reasoning: As stated above, the respondent is admittedly an agriculturist and he owes a sum of money to the appellant Bank under a decree passed in its favour by the Sub-Court, Meenacil, in O.S. No. 28 of 1963. The liability which the respondent owes to the appellant Bank is therefore a "debt" within the meaning of section 2 (4) of the Act. But certain liabilities are excluded from the ambit of the definition of "Debt". The liabilities which are thus excluded from the definition of debt are specified in clauses (a) to (n) of section 2 (4). W e are concerned in this appeal with the liabilities specified in clause (a) (ii) and clause (1) of section 2 (4), which are excluded from the operation of clause 2 (4). We will first consider the implications of the exclusion provided for in sub-clause (ii) of clause (a) of section 2 (4). Under the aforesaid sub-clause, any sum payable to a subsidiary bank within the meaning of section 2 (k) ofe Bank of India(Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959, is excluded from the definition of "debt". Section 2 (k) of the Act of 1959 defines a "subsidiary bank" to mean any new bank, including the Hyderabad Bank and the Saurashtra Bank. The expression "new bank" is defined in section 2 (f) of the Act of 1959 to mean any o f the banks constituted under section 3. Section 3 provides that with effect from such date, as the Central Government may specify, there shall be constituted the new banks specified in the section. Clause (f) of section 3 mentions theState Bank ofTravancore amongst the new banks which may be constituted under section 3. It is thus clear that the appellant Bank, namely, theState Bank ofTravancore, is a subsidiary bank as contemplated by sub- clause (ii) of clause (a) of section 2 (4) of the Act. If the matter were to rest there, the decretal amount payable by the respondent to the appellant Bank will not be a debt within the meaning of section 2 (4) of the Act, since the appellant is a subsidiary bank within the meaning of section 2 (k) ofe Bank of India(Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959. But by reason of clause (B) of the proviso to section 2 (4) (a) (ii) of the Act, the amount payable to a subsidiary bank is not to be regarded as a debt within t he meaning of the Act, only if the right of the subsidiary bank to recover the amount did not arise by reason of any transfer effected by operation of law subsequent to July 1, 1957. The proviso is thus in the nature of an exception to the exceptions contained in section 2 (4) (a) (ii) of theAbdul Khader, who appears on behalf of the appellant conceded before us that it is not a banking company. The concession is rightly made, since according to section 2(2) of the Act, Banking Company mea ns a banking company as defined inthe Banking Regulation Act, 1949. Section S(c) of the Act of 1949 defines a banking company to mean any Company which transacts the business of banking in India (subject to the provision contained in the Explanation to the section). Thus, in order that a bank may be a banking company, it is in the first place necessary that it must be a "company". TheState Bank ofTravancore, which is the appellant before us, is not a company properly so called. It is a subsidiary bank which falls within the definition of section 2(k) ofe Bank of India(Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959. It was established by the Central Government in accordance with the Act of 1959 and is not a company and therefore, not a banking company. It must follow that the decretal debt which the respondent is liable to pay to the appellant is not owed to a banking company. It was indeed not owed to any banking company at all on July 14, 1970, being the date on which the Act came into force. It may be recalled that the respondent owed a certain sum exceeding three thousand rupees to the Kottayam Orient Bank Ltd., a banking company, on an overdraft account. That Bank was amalgamated with the appellant Bank with effect from May 16, 1961, as a result of which the latter acquired the right to recover the amount from the respondent. It filed Suit No. 28 of 1963 to recover that amount and obtained a decree against the respondent.It is precisely this small conspectus of facts, namely, that the amount was at one time owed to a banking company but was not owed to a banking company at the commencement of the Act, which raises the question as regards the true interpretation of clause (1) of section 2order to judge the validity of the submission mad e by the Attorney General, one must of necessity have regard to the object and purpose of the Act. The object of the Act is to relieve agricultural indebtedness. In order to achieve that object, the legislature conferred certain benefits on agricultural debtors but, while doing so, it excluded a class of debts from the operation of the Act, namely, debts of the description mentioned in clauses (a) to (n) of section 2(4). One class of debts taken out from the operation of t he Act is debts owed to banking companies, as specified in clause (1). The reason for this exception is obvious. It is notorious that money lenders exploit needy agriculturists and impose upon them harsh and onerous terms while granting loans to them. But that charge does not hold true in the case of representative institutions, like banks and banking companies. They are governed by their rules and regulations which do not change from debtor to debtor and which, if any thing, are intended to benefit the weaker sections of society. It is for this reason that debts owing to such creditors are excepted from the operation of thenecessary implication and an inevitable consequence of the Attorney Generals argument is that in order to attract the application of clause (1) of section 2 (4), it is enough to show that the debt was, at some time before the commencement of the Act, owed to a banking company; it does not matter whether it was in its inception owed to a private money-lender and, equally so, whether it was owed to such a money-lender on the date of the commencement of the Act. This argument, if accepted, will defeat the very object of the Act. The sole test which assumes relevance according to that argument is whether the debt was owed, at any time before the commencement of the Act, to a banking company. It means that it is enough for the purpose of attracting clause (1) that, at some time in the past, may be in a chain of transfers, the right to recover the debt was vested in a banking company. A simple illustration will elucidate the point. If a private money-lender had initially granted a loan to an agricultural debtor on usurious terms but the right to recover that debt came to be vested in a banking company some time before the commencement of the Act, the debtor will not be able to avail himself of the benefit of the provisions of the Act because, at some point of time before the commencement of the Act, the debt was owed to a banking company. And this would be so irrespective of whether the banking company continues to be entitled to recover the debt on the date of the commencement of the Act. Even if it assigns its right to a private individual, the debtor will be debarred from claiming the benefit of the Act because, what is of decisive importance, according to the Attorney Generals argument is the fact whether, some time before the commencement of the Act, the debt was due to a banking company. We do not think the Legislature could have intended to produce such a startlingplain language of the clause, if interpreted so plainly, will frustrate rather than further the object of the Act. Relief t o agricultural debtors, who have suffered the oppression of private moneylenders, has to be the guiding star which must illumine and inform the interpretation of the beneficent provisions of the Act. When clause (1) speaks of a debt du e "before the commencement" of the Act to a banking company, it does undoubtedly mean what it says, namely, that the debt must have been due to a banking company before the commencement of the Act. But it means something more: that the debt mus t also be due to a banking company at the commencement of the Act. We quite see that we are reading into the clause the word "at" which is not there because, whereas it speaks of a debt due "before" the commencement of the Act, we are reading the cla use as relating to a debt which was due "at" and "before" the commencement of the Act to any banking company. We would have normally hesitated to fashion the clause by so restructuring it but we see no escape from that course, since that is the only rational manner by which we can give meaning and content to it, so as to further the object of theVaidyanathan, who appears on behalf of the respondent, contended that the claim made by the appellant Bank falls squarely under section 2 (4) (a) (ii) of the Act and that if the appellant is not entitled to the benefit of the specific provision contained therein, it is impermissible to consider whether it can cl aim the benefit of some other exclusionary clause like clause (1). Counsel is right to the extent that the appellant is not entitled to claim the benefit of the provision contained in section 2 (4)(a)(ii) because of Proviso B to that section. The simple reason in support of this conclusion is that the right of the appellant to recover the debt arose by reason of a transfer effected by operation of law subsequent to July 1, 1957.We have already dealt with that aspect of the matter. But we are no t inclined to accept the submission that if a particular case falls under a specific clause of section 2 (4) which is found to be inapplicable, the creditor is debarred from claiming the benefit of any of the other clauses (a) to (n). The obje ct of the exclusionary clauses is to take category of debts from out of the operation of the Act and there is no reason why, if a specific clause is inapplicable, the creditor cannot seek the benefit of the other clauses. The exclusiona ry clauses, together, are certainly exhaustive of the categories of excepted debts but to make those clauses mutually exclusive will be to impair unduly the efficacy of the very object of taking away a certain class of debts from the operation of the Act. We are not therefore, inclined to accept the submission made by the learned counsel that section 2 (4) (a) (ii) is exhaustive of all circumstances in which a subsidiary bank can claim the benefit of the exceptions to section 2 (4 ).