Case: K. Hutchi Gowder Vs. Richobdas Pathaimull &amp; Co

2. The facts are as follows : On February 15, 1945, the appellant and 4 others executed a mortgage deed in favour of Kaverlal Chordia for a sum of Rs. 2,00,000/- payable after three years with interest at 9 per cent per annum. On January 24, 1946, the mortgagee assigned the said mortgage in favour of the respondent. Certain payments towards principal and interest were made thereunder. On February 28, 1950. the assignee-mortgagee i.e., the respondent, filed a suit, O. S. No. 55 of 1950, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Nilgiris, Ootacamund, for the recovery of Rs. 1,98,487-8-0, made up of Rs. 1,50,000/- for the balance of the principal and Rs. 48,487-8-0 for interest due on the mortgage. The suit ended in a compromise dated December 21, 1950, under which a decree was passed for Rs. 1,50,000/- on account of principal, with interest and further interest at 9 per cent per annum and cost, subject to some concessions being shown in the event of payments being made in certain specified instalments. Thereafter, certain payments were made towards the decree. In due course the respondent filed I. A. No. 382 of 1953 for the passing of a final decree. On June 24, 1955, the appellant filed O. P. No. 24 of 1955 for scaling down the debt. The respondent, inter alia, contended in his objections filed against the said application that as the debt sought to be scaled down was incurred subsequent to March 22, 1938, which is the date of the commencement of the Parent Act, the decree could not be scaled down under S. 19(2) of the Parent Act. The learned Subordinate Judge overruled the objection and held by his order dated August 10, 1956, that the decree was liable to be scaled down in terms of S. 13 of the Parent Act. He accordingly scaled down the decree debt. On appeal, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court held that as the statutory right to have the interest scaled down was not put forward before the consent decree was passed the decree could not be scaled down at the stage of the final decree proceedings. It further held that S. 19(2) of the Parent Act only applied to debts payable at commencement of the said Act and, therefore, the application for scaling down the decree was not maintainable. In the result it set aside the order of the Subordinate Judge and dismissed the petition for scaling down the debt. Hence the present appeal.

Reasoning: The general scheme of the Parent Act gathered therefrom may be briefly stated thus. The main object of the Parent Act was to give relief to agriculturists. "Debt" has been defined in S. 3 (iii) of the Parent Act as any liability in cash or kind, whether secured or unsecured, due from an agriculturist, whether payable under a decree or order of a civil or revenue court or otherwise. This definition is rather comprehensive: it takes in secured, unsecured and decree debts due from an agriculturist. Section 7 of the Parent Act declares that a debt so defined has to be scaled down in the manner prescribed by the said Act. Section 8 provides the mode of scaling down debts incurred before 1932 and S. 9, the debts incurred after 1932 but before March 22, 1938; and S. 13 deals with the scaling down of debts incurred after the commencement of the Parent Act. The relief granted under the said Act varies with the date of the debt depending upon whether it falls under one or other of the said three periods. While Ss. 7, 8, 9 and 13 give the principles for scaling down a debt, S. 19 provides the machinery for scalingargument, if accepted, disturbs the entire scheme of the Parent Act. Section 13 is one of the group of Sections viz., Ss. 8, 9 and 13, dealing with the principles of scaling down in a proceeding for the recovery of a debt. But where a decree is to be amended, the Act has taken care to provide expressly for the amendment of the decree. If the Legislature intended to provide for the amendment of decrees even in cases falling under S. 13, it would have added another appropriate clause in S. 19. The absence of any such clause indicates an intention that in cases of debts comprehended by S. 13, the Legislature gives only a limited relief expressly provided thereunder. It is said, so, far as the reopening of decrees after the Parent Act came into force is concerned, whether in respect of debts incurred before or after the said Act, there cannot possibly be a justification for a difference in the manner of their treatment. A plausible reason can be discerned for this legislative distinction between debts incurred before the Act and those incurred after the Act, for in the former when the debts were incurred the Act was not in existence and, as the debtors could not have anticipated the provisions of the Act, they were given the summary remedy, but the agriculturists who incurred debts after the Parent Act with open eyes were denied the same; while in the former, they were allowed to reopen decrees made in respect of the said debts before or after the Act, in the latter they could claim relief only in an appropriate proceeding before the decree was made and that too was confined to the limited relief in regard to the rate of interest provided thereunder. The difference in the treatment of the two categories of decrees was brought about by sub-s. (2) of S. 19 added by a later amendment. Whatever may be the reason for the difference, we cannot extend the scope of S. 13 by analogy or by stretching the meaning of the words "proceeding" and "recovery".The legal position may be briefly stated thus. Sections 7, 8, 9 and 13 form a group of Sections providing the principles of scaling down of debts incurred by agriculturists under different situations. A debt can be scaled down in an appropriate proceeding taken in respect of the same. But in the case of debts that have ripened into decrees; S. 19 (1) and (2) prescribe a special procedure for reopening the decree only in respect of debts incurred before the Parent Act. The Parent Act does not provide for the reopening of decrees made in respect of debts incurred after it came into force, and for understandable reasons the relief in respect of such decrees is specifically confined only to a concession in the rate ofposition, therefore, is that in the case of debts other thanthe scaling down process will have to be resorted to in an appropriate proceeding taken in respect of the debt and in the case of decrees in respect of debts incurred before the Parent Act whether made before or after the said Act, by filing an application under S. 19(1) or (2) of the Parent Act, as the case may be. But S. 19 on its express terms does not permit the filing of an application for amending a decree by scaling down a debt incurred after the Parent Act came into force. Doubtless,as Mr. Viswanatha Sastri contends, the Parent Act, to some extent, undermines the sanctity of decrees, but that is to implement the policy of the Legislature to give relief to agriculturists overburdened with debts. But a Court, particularly in the case of an expropriatory measure like the Act, cannot rely upon the supposed policy of the Legislature and extend the scope of the relief given to agriculturists by analogy.The scope of the relief shall necessarily be confined to that given by the Act expressly or by necessary implication. A fair reading of(1) and (2) of S. 19 of the Parent Act disclose beyond any reasonable doubt that the Legislature does not provide thereunder any machinery for reopening a decree made in respect of a debt incurred after the Act came into force.