Govindammal and another vs Saradambal and others

N.S. Ramaswami, J.—This civil miscellaneous appeal by two of the judgment-debtors. The question is whether they are entitled to the benefits of Act IV of 1938 as amended by Act 8 of 1973. Defendants 1 and 5 filed the application under S.19 of the Act for scaling down the decree debt. It was found, as a matter of fact, that the first defendant had no interest in any agricultural land, either saleable or leasehold, and that therefore he is not an agriculturist as on the date of the application. It was further found that the fifth defendant had also not shown that he has any interest to any agricultural land and even if he had such interest, he cones under proviso-C to S. 2 (2) of the Act, because he has been paying property tax for the four half years preceding 1st March, 1972, the annual value of the property being Rs. 2.025. So, the court below found, as a matter of fact, that both these defendants are not agriculturists on the date of the application for scaling down.

The contention on behalf of the two defendants-judgment debtors, who are the appellants before me, is that the money decree itself proceeds on the footing that these appellants are agriculturists entitled to the benefits of the Act IV of 1938 and interest has been allowed only on that basis and that being so, it is not now open to the decree-holders to say that the appellants are not entitled to file an application under S.19 for scaling down. This contention is totally unacceptable.

Act 8 of 1973 has conferred certain new benefits and S.19, under which the scaling down is prayed for, has also been amended. As S.19 now Stands, decrees granted before the publication of the Amending Act in the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette are to be scaled down in accordance with the relevant provision of the Act. But the section says that the sealing down is to be in the case of a debtor who is an agriculturist. Undoubtedly, that means, he must be an agriculturist on the date on which the application is made. The section does not say that if the debtor is an agriculturist or has been an agriculturist, he is entitled to the sealing down. As I said, that section makes it clear that he should be an agriculturist on the date of the application because the language used is ''judgment debtor who is an agriculturist.''

It has been pointed out by the Full Bench in Pappathi Ammal alias Nallammal v. Nallu Pillai AIR 1964 Mad. 173, 177, that where a debt has merged into a decree, S.19 prescribes that the debtor should prove an agriculturist''s status on the date of the application as well. That was the position even before the amending Act 8 of 1973 came into force. Therefore there is no good saying that at the time of the passing of the decree in this case the appellants had been held to be agriculturists entitled to the benefits of Act IV of 1938. On the basis that they are agriculturists then, they had the benefit of having the decree providing interest as per Act IV of 1938. Now, if they want to have it scaled down in accordance with the Amending Act 8 of 1973, naturally they have to show that they are agriculturists on the date of the application under S.19. The decision of the court below is right. The appeal fails and the same is accordingly dismissed with costs.