The main legal point established in the judgment is the exclusivity of the board's jurisdiction and the prevailing nature of the board's decision over civil courts, as provided in Section 20 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act.

ORDER

1. This rule has been issued against an order of the Munsif, First Court, Berhampur, vacating an order staying proceedings in mortgage suit No. 19 of 1941 in which a preliminary decree had been passed. The judgment-debtor in the suit is the present petitioner, and the plaintiff is the opposite party. The plaintiff had, before institution of the mortgage suit, filed an application before the Banneswar Debt Settlement Board; the application was dismissed u/s 13 (3), Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act, for non-appearance of the petitioner, the debtor before the board. It is the case of the petitioner that in fact this was a collusive proceeding of which she had no knowledge. After the preliminary decree was passed in the mortgage suit, she made an application under the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act before the Kusmore Debt Settlement Board, and on 7th August 1942, that board issued a notice u/s 34 of the Act, as a result of which the mortgage suit was stayed by an order dated 14th August 1942. The plaintiff then moved to have the order vacated on the ground of the dismissal of the application previously made before the Banneswar Board; according to the petitioner this was the first intimation she had of the previous proceeding. The Kusmore Board in the meantime proceeded with the petitioner's application and determined her debts on 6th February 1943. On 6th March the opposite party moved the board to reconsider its order, but his application was rejected. He then on 17th March 1943, obtained the order at present under consideration by which the Munsif vacated the previous stay order.

2. A somewhat important question of conflict of jurisdiction between the civil Courts and debt settlement boards arises for decision. There are two cases on the point, Kali Sundar Roy and Others Vs. Khum Chandra Bothra and Another, AIR 1940 Cal 473 , decided by Edgley J. and Purna Lall Nandan Vs. Bhupendra Chandra Dutt, AIR 1941 Cal 31 decided by Henderson J. who followed the reasoning of the former case. Edgley J. considered the provision in Section 8 (5), Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act, permitting filing of a further application "for good and sufficient reason" to be limited to eases where the debtor through oversight had omitted to mention a particular debt in his first application. He also held that the effect of the first dismissal was to exclude the debt from the scope of the Act, and that as Section 34 only applies to debts which fall within its scope the executing Court was justified in not staying proceedings. The decision is one of June 1940; the amending Act 8 of 1940, came into force just after this in July 1940,' amending Section 20 to make the determination of the question whether a liability is a debt or not a matter for decision by the boards. The reasoning on which the decision of Edgley J. is based is therefore no longer valid. With great respect we have some doubt as to whether the interpretation given by Edgley J. to the provisions of Section 8 (5) of the Act is sound. It is not, however, necessary for us to decide the point, since the first application was one dismissed u/s 13 (3) of the Act, and so clearly one included within the exception in Section 8 (5), so that in any view of the interpretation of the section a further application either in respect of debts included in the first application or in respect of another debt could not be entertained by the Board.

3. The point that arises for decision here is whether the Courts are to decide the question whether a board ought or ought not to entertain a particular further application and whether the Court can override a decision by a board on the point, and hold that a board has acted without jurisdiction in entertaining an application, when according to the view taken by the Court, the board has made a mistaken decision, as to its power to entertain the application, or has entertained an application in ignorance of the fact of a previous application. In our opinion the matter i