The court emphasized that the powers given under Section 152, Civil Procedure Code, only relate to arithmetical mistakes or errors arising from an accidental slip or omission, and that it does not empower a court to rectify a decree merely because the decree is wrong or unfair or because the parties have not realized their rights and put them before the court in such a way as to enable a correct decree to be passed.

Wadsworth, J.

1. This revision petition is filed against an order passed in April, 1937, amending under Section 152, Civil Procedure Code, a decree of April, 1919. The judgment, from which this decree proceeds, was passed on the consent of the lawyers representing both parties. The Judge who passed the decree and the leading counsel who represented both sides are all said to be dead. The facts are a little complicated but the essential points may be summarised briefly.

2. The petitioner here was the first defendant in a partition suit and the preliminary decree declared the petitioner and the respondent each to be entitled to half of the family properties. At the final decree stage there were difficulties in working out what were the rights and liabilities of the parties. The trial Court passed its final decree on the report of a commissioner who amongst other things found that the first defendant was liable for four sums making up a total of Rs. 1,888-14-10 in respect of debts due to the family which he had collected. In appeal the learned District Judge passes a judgment the first paragraph of which runs as follows:

"The parties have agreed about the amount of debts due by the family and about the amount of debts due to the family which were allowed by the first defendant to become time-barred. The amount which plaintiff has to pay under Ex. 49" (that is, debts due by the family) "is Rs. 4,043-10-0 and the amount to be deducted for his share of barred debts is Rs. 1,253-13-5. The net amount which plaintiff has to pay is Rs. 2,789-12-7."

3. The learned Judge then goes on to deal with the various subsidiary items on which the parties are agreed and then mentions that the questions with regard to these matters had been discussed in Court with the Vakils on both sides and an agreement had been reached and ends by saying that the final decree will be revised accordingly.

4. When the decree was drafted, it prescribed that the plaintiff should pay "Rs. 2,789-12-7 as agreed by the parties about the amount of debts due by the family and about the amount of the debts due to the family." The decree is silent about the first defendants liability in respect of debts actually collected.

5. It is contended that the omission of any reference to the fact that this sum of Rs. 2,789-12-7 is merely the net result of subtracting the liability of the defendants for time-barred debts from the amount of the plaintiffs liability for debts due by the family, has resulted in an omission to give to the plaintiff a decree for these four items making up Rs. 1,888-14-10 which were taken into account in the lower Courts decree and which the appellate Court did not intend in any way to disallow.

6. Apparently the parties did not realise that there was anything wrong with this decree and the plaintiff in execution claimed this sum of Rs. 1,888-14-10 under the decree as amended. He succeeded in two Courts but in second appeal Mr. Justice Jackson held that though this sum might well be really due to the plaintiff, the parties having allowed an agreed statement to be embodied in the decree that the plaintiff do pay so much, they could not afterwards ask the executing Court to recast the amount and amend the decree. This judgment was confirmed in Letters Patent Appeal.

7. After the plaintiff had failed to get the decree interpreted as covering this claim for Rs. 1,888-14-10 he filed an application before the learned District Judge under Section 152 of the Civil Procedure Code, asking that the decree passed some 18 years previously should be amended by the insertion of words making the first defendant liable for Rs. 1,888-14-10. The learned District Judge has held that clearly this amount was due, that it was omitted from the decree by error and has ordered the amendment of the decree, but has disallowed costs on the ground that the amendments should have been applied for nearly 0 years previously.

8. It is contended that the remedy, if the order of the learned Di