Ahammed alias Kunju vs Achutha Menon

Madhavan Nair, J.—The plaintiff''s Small Cause Suit instituted on July 24, 1961, on a promissory note dated January 23, 1958-23rd July, 1961, was a holiday has been dismissed by the Munsif as beyond time. The plaintiff has come up in revision, which is referred to a Bench by Joseph J. That the debtor is an agriculturist within the definition of the Kerala Act, XXXI of 1958 is not in dispute here. The contention is that, by the effect of Section 4 of the said Act, the promissory note has become one payable by installments within the meaning of Article 74 or 75 of the Limitation Act, 1908, and therefore the starting point of limitation with respect to each installment is the date on which it fell due under the section or with respect to the whole debt when default has been made of six consecutive installments. Counsel relied on Bichal Naidu v. S.K. Muthuramalingam (75 L.W. 477) in which the Madras High Court has held the effect of a like provision in the Madras Indebted Agriculturists Relief Act, I of 1955, to be to sever the integrality of the debt into distinct parts for purposes of limitation and the right to sue. But that Act contains no provision like S. 3 (2) of the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, XXXI of 1958, which reads:

Where a creditor files a suit for recovery of a debt before the expiry of six months from the commencement of this Act or after the agriculturist has paid or deposited the sums and installments specified in S. 4 and during the period when he is so entitled to pay, the Court shall in decreeing the suit direct the plaintiff to bear his own costs and to pay the costs of the defendant who is an agriculturist, except in cases where the claim would have been barred by limitation had no such suit been filed or when a debt is jointly due from an agriculturist and non-agriculturist.

Obviously, the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act contemplates institution of suits on debts before they are barred by limitation as has been held in Athrumankutty Vs. Chovvara, ; and Section 20 of the Act extends the period of limitation only for applications for execution of decrees. The absence of any provision in the Act extending the period of limitation for any suit appears conspicuous. If the promissory note has, by virtue of Section 4 of the Act, become one payable by installments, no suit can be instituted for the entirety of the sum due under the note at any time within three years of the commencement of the Act, and such a position would be inconsistent with Section 3 (2) which seems to insist on suits being instituted within the period of limitation. A construction that would make one section of the Act inconsistent with another has to be avoided; and therefore the construction put upon Section 4 of the Act by counsel for the petitioner has to be repelled. No other point is raised in this Civil Revision Petition. The C.R.P. has no force. It is dismissed.