The main legal point established in the judgment is the applicability of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act to compromise decrees and the determination of the date on which the liability of the judgment-debtors was incurred.

Patanjali Sastri, J.

1. These revision petitions arise out of applications made by defendants 1 and 2 (judgment-debtors and respondents in C.R.P. No. 691 of 1939) under Section 19 of the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act for scaling down the compromise decree in O.S. No. 1 of 1936 on the file of the lower Court. The suit was brought on a mortgage bond executed on 16th July, 1923, for the payment of Rs. 9,000 in eighteen instalments of Rs. 500 each payable every eight months commencing from 7th February, 1924. Trie decree-holder (the petitioner in C.R.P. No. 691 of 1939) started a kurichit as stake-holder with twenty subscribers each contributing Rs. 10,000 in twenty equal instalments on the terms and conditions set out a what is called the kurivari. According to these terms, the amounts collected from the subscribers in respect of each instalment was to be put up for auction among them and allotted to the bidder who offered the highest discount, such discount being distributed among the subscribers as profits. The defendants 1 and 2 who had together subscribed for one ticket in the. kurichit on behalf of their forward were the successful bidders at the second auction held on 7th June, 1923, and they were paid Rs. 5,800 being the balance after deducting the discount of Rs. 4,200 offered by them. Having already paid two instalments, they executed the mortgage bond (Ex. I) according to the stipulation in the kurivari for the due payment of the remaining eighteen instalments, amounting to Rs. 9,000. The respondents thereafter paid ten instalments but failed to pay the remaining eight instalments, and O.S. No. 1 of 1936 was brought for the recovery of these instalments with interest amounting in all to Rs. 7,640. The defendants 1 and 2 admitted the execution of the bond and pleaded that the interest claimed was penal while the other members of the tarwad who got themselves impleaded as defendants 3 to 6 contested the liability of the tarwad for the debt. The suit was eventually compromised the plaintiff agreeing to accept payment of a smaller sum in five instalments in full satisfaction of the claim and defendants 3 to 6 withdrawing their opposition and agreeing to pay the sum personally, and the decree now sought to be scaled down was passed on 14th April, 1936, in accordance with the compromise.

2. Various contentions were raised on either side in the Court below on a consideration of which the Court held that (1) the applicants for relief were agriculturists as defined in the Act; (2) that Section 4(f) of the Act had no application as the judgment-debtors could not, in any view, be regarded as trustees;(3) that the provisions of the Act were applicable to compromise decrees also; and (4) that for purposes of scaling down the decree the liability of the debtors must be taken to have accrued on the several dates fixed for payment o< the instalments in the security bond, Ex. I, On these findings, he learned Judge directed the decree to be scaled down in accordance with Section 8 of the Act in respect ;of the instalments which fell due prior to the 1st October, 1932, and in accordance with Section 9 in respect of the instalments which fell due subsequently. From this decision, the decree-holder has preferred C.R.P. No. 691 of 1939 contending that the compromise decree cannot properly be regarded as a renewal of the liability under Ex. I, and the first defendant has preferred C.R.P. No. 257 of 1939 raising the contention that in respect of the entire amount decreed, the liability of the debtors must be held to have been incurred on the date of the security bond and not on the dates fixed for payment of the. instalments thereunder, and that the entire debt has therefore to be scaled down under Section 8 of the Act.

3. As regards C.R.P. No. 691 of 1939, we have already held in Rdmamurthi v. Sitaramayya AIR1941Mad56 that the mere fact that a decree is based on a compromise does not exempt it from the operation of Act IV of 1938, tha