The award of pendente lite and post-decree interest is discretionary under S. 34 and O. 34, R. 11 of the CPC, and the court may decline to award interest if it finds that Social and Economic Justice has been done to the debtor.

( 1 ) THE only question involved in these two appeals at the instance of the decree-holder Bank is whether the trial Court was wrong in not granting the pendente lite and also post-decree interest, while decreeing the two suits giving rise to these two appeals, warranting our intervention.

( 2 ) THE trial Judge, while decreeing these two suits, said nothing about the pendente lite as well as post-decree interest and must therefore be held to have refused such interest and, as has been made clear in the Memorandum of Appeal in both the appeals, the appeals are directed "against the portion of the judgment and Decree refusing pendente lite interest and interest on the decretal amount till realisation. "

( 3 ) EXACTION of interest on loan, more often than not, operates harshly on the debtors. Our ancient Hindu Law condemned such practice. Vasista said (Vasista-Sanhita, Chapter II, Verses 36042) that "if destruction of foetus and exaction of interest were weighed in balance, the destroyer of foetus would go upon the scale and Usurer would fall down", and commenting on this, Dr. P. N. Sen in his Tagore Law Lecturers on Hindu Jurisprudence (1918, page 300) said that "this figuratively expresses the Sage'sopinion that extortion of interest which sucks the lifeblood, so to say, of living men is even more reprehensible than the destruction of foetus which has not yet seen light of the day". But notwithstanding such strong denouncement, Vasista could not declare it to be illegal but branded the Usurer as a "sinner who is lost to all virtuous acts". Narada also prohibited such practice for the Brahmins and Khatriyas, but conceded it for the Vaisyas, the commercial while characterising such acquisition as "partly black (impure)". "the world", said Swami Vivekananda, "is in the third epoch under the domination of the Vaishyas (the merchant, the third estate)" and would continue to be so until the advent of "the fourth epoch" which "will be under the domination of the Shudras (the proletariat)".

( 4 ) THE classical Islamic Law also, not the Indian brand thereof, condemned exaction of interest on loan and, as would appear from Sir Abdur Rahim's Tagore Law Lectures on Muhammadan Jurisprudence (1911 page 397), "those Muhammadans who strictly follow the rules of law regarding Riba do not feel themselves justified in taking interest on money advanced". We are fully alive to the fact that we do not, as we cannot, administer either the classical Hindu Law or the classical Muslim Law; but we have referred to all these only to show that, even though conceded as a necessary evil in commercial practice, our Juristic heritage condemned the practice of exacting interest as something reprehensible and not commendable.

( 5 ) PENDENTE lite as well as post-decree interests are in the nature of compensation or damages which the Court may award to the plaintiff for being kept out of the money due to him. Whether we look to the general provisions of S. 34 of the Code of Civil Procedure, or to those of R. 11 of O. 34 specially applicable to mortgage-suits, the relevant provisions are patently governed and controlled by the expression "may" and these provisions therefore, should lead us to conclude that award of such interest is not obligatory, but only discretionary and the Court may or may not award such interest.

( 6 ) THERE is the high authority of the Federal Court in Jaigobind Singh v. Lachmi Narain, AIR 1940 FC 20 for such a view, where the Federal Court was considering the provisions of the Bihar Money-Lenders (Regulation of Transaction) Act, 1939, S. 8 whereof enabled the Courts to exercise several powers to grant reliefs to the borrowers and used the expression "the Court may exercise all or any of the following powers" enumerated thereunder. The Federal Court ruled (supra, at 22) that "obviously by the use of the word `may"', it was intended to vest the Court with a discretion and that "had the intention been" otherwise, "