The duty of parties to bring forth any relief under the Act before the appellate court.

Venkataramana Rao, J.

1. This civil miscellaneous appeal, which was later converted into a civil revision petition, arises out of an application filed under Section 19 of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act for scaling down a debt due by the petitioner in respect whereof a decree was passed on 18th September, 1935, by the Sub-Court of Devakottai and confirmed by the High Court on 28th February, 1939. The learned Subordinate Judge dismissed the application on the ground that though the petitioners are agriculturists within the meaning of the Act, they are not entitled to the benefits thereunder because they have been assessed to property or house tax within two years immediately preceding 1st October, 1937, within the meaning of Section 3, Clause (c) of the Act. This view is challenged by the petitioners as unsound. But the learned Counsel for the respondent-decree-holder submits that the dismissal of the application could be sustained on the ground that the application under Section 19 was incompetent and the Subordinate Judge of Devakottai had no jurisdiction to grant any relief thereon. His contention is that Section 19 of the Act does not apply to decrees passed after the commencement of Madras Act IV of 1938, namely, 22nd March, 1938, and the appellate decree in this case was passed after the said date, that is, on the 28th February, 1939, that the said decree has become final and that if the petitioners wanted any relief under the Act, they should have made the application to the appellate Court before the decree was passed by that Court. In support of this contention he relied on the recent decisions of this Court reported in Kotayya v. Venkata Punnayya AIR1940Mad910 , and Kannabhiran Pillai v. Govindaswami Pillai AIR1940Mad959 , and Ramaswami Udayar v. Ramanathan Chettiar AIR1941Mad373 . Apart from authority, according to the plain language of Section 19, it would not apply to a decree passed after the commencement of the Act. In Kotayya v. Venkata Punnayya AIR1940Mad910 , our learned brothers Wadsworth, J., and Patanjali Sastri, J., took this view with reference to a decree passed by a trial Court after the commencement of the Act. In that case the suit was brought on 3rd January, 1938, and a decree was passed on 18th April, 1938. Between these dates the Act came into force, that is, on 22nd March, 1938. Though the written statement in that case was filed on 30th January, 1938, the learned Judges held that it was the obvious duty of the petitioner to make an application to the Court before the passing of the decree claiming relief under the Act and as he had omitted to do so, the decree must be deemed to have become final. The reason is thus stated by Patanjali Sastri, J., at page 204:

All available pleas in answer to a claim should be made the subject of enquiry before the Court passes the decree.... It may be laudable to rehabilitate agriculturists by a compulsory scaling down of their debts but it could be no part of this object to condone, and thereby encourage, their laches in the conduct of legal proceedings. On the other hand, having regard to the expropriatory nature of the provisions, Courts should watch with a jealous eye attempts to have the scope of the Act extended, under colour of interpretation, beyond what its terms expressly warrant. I am therefore of opinion, reading the Act as a whole, that the word decree in Sections 7, 8 and 9 must be taken to refer to decrees passed before the commencement of the Act.

2. This principle was extended by our learned brother Wadsworth, J., to a case where a trial Court dismissed the suit but on appeal that decision was reversed by the appellate Court after the Act came into force (Vide Kannabhiran Pillai v. Govindaswami Pillai AIR1940Mad959 . He observed thus:

At the time when this application was made there was a good deal of difference of opinion on the question whether a decree passed after the Act came into force could be scaled down. That doubt has, I hope,