The Court clarified the scope of section 11 of the Moneylenders Act and its inapplicability to final decrees for sale on mortgages.

1. This raises a point as to the applicability of section 11 of the Central Provinces Moneylenders Act, 1934 (XIII of 1934) to the class of suit brought by a mortgage on a mortgage whereby the plaintiff seeks to realise his security by means of a decree for sale on failure by the mortgagor to pay the decretal amount. As it is in our opinion a conspicuous example of the difficulties which confront Courts when legislation is framed in the way the Acts that we are about to examine are framed, we shall examine those Acts with some little particularity to show our difficulties.

2. The starting point is the Moneylenders Act, 1934, which was fundamentally concerned with loans made by moneylenders and contains a power conferred upon the Court to direct payment of decretal amounts by installments. The relevant words in section 11 which confer that power are as follows :

The court may, at any time on the application of a judgment-debtor, after notice to the decree-holder direct that the amount of any decree passed against him, whether before or after this Act comes into force, in respect of a loan shall be paid in installments.

3. When that Act was passed ''loan'' did not include a mortgage. By Act XXIV of 1937 the exclusion of ''mortgage'' from ''loan'' which is contained in section 2 (vii) (f) was deleted with the result that from the coming into force of that Act ''loan'' included ''mortgage''. Then naturally the question arose: What was the position as regards all those suits that had been filed between 1934 and 1937 on mortgages ? Could the Court turn a preliminary' decree which orders that so much money shall be paid within such and such a time failing which there will be either a foreclosure or a sale, into an installment decree thus entirely altering the whole purpose of the suit ? This High Court held that the Act did not affect a pending proceeding. Then was passed Act XVII of 1939 which provides inter alia as follows :

The amendment made to sub-clause (f) clause (vii) of section 2 of the Central Provinces Moneylenders Act, 1934 (hereinafter referred to as the said Act, by the Central Provinces Moneylenders (Second Amendment) Act, 1937, which is in force with effect from the 10th March 1937 shall be deemed to be in force with effect from the 1st April 1935.

4. We have now to consider what exactly that means.

5. We had already decided that the Act of 1937 does not affect pending proceedings. In 1940, we decided that for the same reason the Act of 1939 did not affect pending proceedings. Now we are met with another case : What is the position when the final decree was passed before the Act of 1934? It will be noticed that the Act of 1934 expressly gives power to the Court to change the decree, whether that decree be passed before or after the Act came into force, into an installment decree. It will also be noticed that it does that by enabling the Court to ''direct that the amount of any decree passed against him'' (that is, the judgment-debtor) may be paid in installments. At that time those words were apt because the Act was concerned with loan transaction which did not include mortgages and consequently were concerned with suits that would end with a money decree. The Act was saying in effect that where A has got a money decree against B that money decree can be turned into an installment decree. The Acts of 1937 and 1939, however, add to the meaning of the term ''loan'' and cause the Act of 1934 to apply to mortgage suits like the one we are now discussing. In a mortgage suit unlike a suit that ends with a money decree, there are two decrees. The first is called the preliminary decree and in effect amounts to this:-The Court says to the defendant mortgagor B: ''Pay such and such a sum by such and such a date''; then the Court says to the mortgagee-plaintiff A: ''If B does not pay by that date, we give you (A) liberty to apply for a final decree.'' When the final decree stage is reached by A's applying and the application b