Validity of promissory note if affected.

This appeal raises an important question under the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act (IV of 1938). The defendant-judgment-debtor is the appellant. The suit was on a pronote for Rs.1,400, dated 5th July, 1948, executed by the defendant to the plaintiff with interest at 12 per cent. per annum. The defendant claimed relief under Act (IV of 1938) on the ground that the suit pronote was in renewal of an earlier pronote dated 9th July, 1945, for Rs.1,500 executed by the defendant in plaintiff’s favour. The main question that was considered by both the lower Courts was as to whether the suit pronote was in renewal of the earlier pronote or a fresh contract between the parties and whether the defendant was entitled to relief under section 13-A of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act. Both the Courts found that it was a fresh contract and was not in renewal of the earlier pronote and that the suit pronote being after the Act the defendant would be entitled to relief only to the extent provided by section 13 of the Act by reducing interest on the suit pronote to 5 per cent. per annum.

It is now contended that the suit pronote was really in renewal of the earlier pronote of the 9th July, 1945 (Exhibit A-1) for a sum of Rs.1,400 being the balance due after payment of the interest and a portion of the principal under the previous pronote, the rate of interest in Exhibit A-1 being 12 per cent. I have no hesitation in finding that the amount of the suit pronote represents the balance due under Exhibit A-1 after payment of interest at 12 per cent. the contract rate under Exhibit A-1, and a portion of the principal, and in that view the suit pronote is a renewal of the earlier pronote for the balance of the amount due thereunder. It was argued by Mr.Kuppuswami Ayyar for the defendant that the principles as to the re-opening of earlier transaction available under sections 8 and 9 of the Act should be applied to the present case. But the proper provision of the Act that is applicable to the suit debt, which is incurred after the commencement of the Act is section 13, where the only relief that an agriculturist is entitled to have is a reduction of interest calculated at 5½; per cent. per annum. Notwithstanding that the suit pronote may be in renewal of an earlier pronote, the suit pronote is a debt which was only incurred after the commencement of the Act and as such section 13 alone is applicable. Sections 8 and 9 are applicable to debts incurred before and on or after the 1st October, 1932, respectively. Explanation III to section 8 and the first proviso to section 9(1) which provides for relief being granted even in respect of prior debts, however, have no application to a debt incurred after the commencement of the Act.

In Thiruvengadatha Aiyangar v. Sannappan Servai1, a Bench of this Court held that all debts incurred after the commencement of the Act whether they be in discharge of prior debts or not will fall only under section 13 and section 9 is not applicable to such debts. As observed by Wadsworth, J., in the said decision

“If it had been the intention of the Legislature to introduce the theory of renewals into the scaling-down operations in respect of debts incurred after the commencement of the Act, some specific provisions would have been made in this behalf.”

In the absence of such a provision in section 13, the relief that could be granted to an agriculturist must be only within the limited scope provided for in section 13.

Similar is the view taken in Krishnamurthi v. Narayana2, where it was held that there is nothing in section 13 of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act, which imports the Explanation to section 8 and allows the Court to go behind the contract and that in a suit on a pronote of 1942 executed in settlement of previous debts of 1939, in giving relief under the Act section 13 can be applied to the suit contract only, but not to the previous debts which it superseded.

Mr.Kuppuswami Ayyar, however, relied on a judgm