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1870 Supreme(Cal) 141

CALCUTTA HIGH COURT
Ram Mohan Das - Appellant
Versus
Lakhi Narayan Roy - Respondent
Reference No. 326
Decided On : 09-02-1870

Headnote:

Contract - Compromise - Act X of 1859 - Section 23 - A compromise entered into before judgment in a Revenue Court, which provides for payment in installments and specifies execution of the decree as the remedy for default, cannot be enforced by a separate suit in the Civil Court.

Fact of the Case:

A gomasta was sued for accounts and money due. Before judgment, the parties compromised, agreeing to payment in installments with execution of the decree as the remedy for default. The plaintiff assigned his interest in the decree to the current plaintiff, who sought execution but was refused by the Revenue Court due to a circular order prohibiting installment execution. The current plaintiff then sued in the Civil Court to recover the unpaid amount.

Finding of the Court:

The court found that the compromise was intended to be embodied in the judgment and that the remedy for default lay in execution of the decree, not a separate suit. The court also found that the Deputy Collector was mistaken in refusing execution, as the decree was for the whole amount with a restriction on execution until default in payment.

Issues: Whether a compromise entered into before judgment in a Revenue Court, which provides for payment in installments and specifies execution of the decree as the remedy for default, can be enforced by a separate suit in the Civil Court.

Ratio Decidendi: The court held that a compromise entered into before judgment in a Revenue Court, which provides for payment in installments and specifies execution of the decree as the remedy for default, cannot be enforced by a separate suit in the Civil Court. The court reasoned that the parties intended the compromise to be embodied in the judgment and that the remedy for default lay in execution of the decree, not a separate suit. The court also found that the Deputy Collector was mistaken in refusing execution, as the decree was for the whole amount with a restriction on execution until default in payment.

Final Decision: The court dismissed the plaintiff's suit.

JUDGMENT

Jackson, J. - This is a case referred by the Judge of Zilla Beerbhoom, upon a regular appeal before his Court, in a suit for 408 rupees, described as money due under a kistbandi. The circumstances are these. Jugal Kishor Das brought a suit against Lakhi Narayan Roy, who had been his gomasta, for accounts and money due from him as gomasta, in the -Revenue Court. Before judgment in that case, the defendant presented a petition of compromise, in which it was recited, that the whole amount due from the defendant to the plaintiff, including the amounts of two bonds previously executed by him, and in consideration of his employment, was rupees 325, which sum, it had been agreed, should be paid in four instalments. It was further agreed that, in default of paying any one of these instalments, the whole debt should be realized at once, with interest thereupon at 1/2 per cent per mensem, and it was prayed that the case should be disposed of in accordance with those conditions. Accordingly, the Revenue Court gave a decree in these words: Let the case be disposed of in accordance with the terms of the compromise," and nothing more.

2. After that Jugal Kishor assigned his interest in this decree to the present plaintiff, Ram Mohan Das, and the assignee applied for execution of the decree to the Revenue Court; but that Court refused execution, on the ground that, under a Circular Order of the Commissioner of Revenue, the Revenue Courts were incompetent to execute a decree by way of instalments.

3. Ram Mohan Das now sues the original defendant and judgment- debtor, Lakhi Narayan Roy, making Jugal Kishor pro forma defendant, to recover the amount due under that compromise.

4. The Judge is of opinion that the suit will not lie; and we are referred to the case of Aghore Chunder Mookerjee v. Wooma Soonderee Debea 7 W.R. 216. In that case, the learned Chief Justice observed: As a general rule, a suit cannot be brought in the Civil Courts to enforce a decree of the "Revenue Courts, under Act X of 1859. These decrees can be "enforced only by execution, and the limitation for proceedings to execute decrees of that nature is defined by Act X itself."

5. The Chief Justice proceeds to say: Then the question arises, whether there was a new contract in this case which the plaintiff can ' enforce by suit in the Civil Court? If the contract of the defendant had been simply that, in consideration of the plaintiff withdrawing the attachment, he, the defendant, would pay down a certain portion of the decree, and pay the remainder of the decree by two instalments, the plaintiff ' would have been at liberty, on default of payment, according to the ' terms of the contract, to have sued in the Civil Courts for the enforcement of that contract; and if the amount had been within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Small Cause Court, be might have sued in that ' Court. But, in this case, the contract specifically points out the mode "in which the instalments, which the defendant agreed to pay, were to be enforced in the event of his not paying them. The contract says if the instalments are not paid, then you, in execution of that decree will recover the whole amount of the instalments with interest, by executing the decree. So that, by the terms of the contract, by which the 'defendant agreed to pay the instalment, the remedy was pointed out for the enforcement of the contract in the event of the defendant's making default. That remedy was the execution of the decree, and not a suit in the Civil Court."

6. Now the vakeel, who appears before us to-day for the plaintiff, points out as a distinction between that case and the case now before us, that there the parties specifically agreed that the remedy was to lie in execution of the decree, but here there is no such specific agreement, and that, consequently, there is a new contract in this case which the plaintiff could enforce by suit in the Civil Courts.

7. In the first place, the Judge has referred to us a poi

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