Harbans Singh vs Salempura Co-operative Agricultural Service Society Ltd.

Ashok Bhan, J.

The principal question of law raised in this writ petition is whether, when a certificate is signed by the Registrar under Section 63(a) of the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ''the Act''), making a decision, award or order duly passed under Section 54, 56, 62, 68 or 69 a deemed decree of a civil Court, can abandon executing it in the civil Court and resort to process envisaged under clauses (b) and (c) thereof.

The facts giving rise to the present writ petition may be shortly stated. Petitioners were members of Salempur Cooperative Agricultural Service Society Limited, tehsil Jagraon, district Ludhiana (hereinafter referred to as ''the Society''). A dispute between the petitioners and the society with regard to a loan was referred to the arbitrator who gave his award against the petitioners on three different dates. No appeal or revision was preferred against the award and as such the same became final. The amount awarded was sought to be recovered by the Society by resorting to proceedings under clause (a) of Section 63 of the Act by filing an execution application before the civil Court. It would be of advantage to reproduce here the provisions of Section 63 of the Act :

"63. Execution of certain decisions, awards and orders. Every decision or order duly passed under Section 54, 56, 62, 68 or 69 shall, if not carried out :

(a) on a certificate signed by the Registrar or any person authorised by him in this behalf be deemed to be a decree of a civil Court and shall be executed in the same manner as decree of such Court; or

(b) be executed by the Registrar or any other person subordinate to him, empowered by the Registrar in this behalf, by the attachment and sale or by sale without attachment of any property of the person or of the cooperative society against whom the order, decision or award has been obtained or passed; or

(c) be executed according to the law for the time being in force for the recovery of arrears of land revenue :

Provided that an application for the recovery of any sum in the last aforesaid manner shall be made to the Collector and shall be accompanied by a certificate signed by the Registrar or any person authorised by him in this behalf."

According to the allegations contained in the writ petition, the execution proceedings filed in the Court of SubJudge 1st Class, Jagraon, were dismissed in default for nonprosecution somewhere in the year 1978. According to the reply filed by respondents No 2. to 4, the execution applications were withdrawn from the civil Court as proceedings for execution of awards were initiated for recovery of the amount in dispute as arrears of land revenue under clause (c) of section 63 of the Act.

It seems that some sort of proceedings were initiated against the petitioners for the recovery of the amount due against them under the award and petitioners filed a revision petition before Commissioner (Appeals), Jalandhar Division, exercising the powers of the State Government under the Act. The said revision petition was dismissed by the revisional authority on 8.9.1988. Aggrieved against the said order of the revisional authority, the petitioners have come up in the present writ petition.

The petitioners have not attached the order/notice issued to them under Section 63(c) or 67A of the Act against which they filed the revision petition before the Commissioner, Jalandhar Division, Jalandhar, exercising the powers of the Government under the Act. The principal contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners in the present writ petition is, as has been indicated in the opening paragraph of this judgment, that when once the proceedings under Section 63(a) of the Act have been initiated, making a decision, award or order duly passed under Section 54, 56, 62, 68 or 69, a deemed decree of civil Court, then the same cannot be abandoned and a resort made to the process envisaged under clause (c) of Section 63 effecting recovery of the amount due as arrears of land revenue. Learned counsel for the petitioners has failed to substantiate the submission made by him. He failed to cite any precedent in support of the contentions raised by him. A Division Bench of this Court in Wara Waryam Singh Cooperative Agricultural Service Society v. Gurbachan Singh, 1974 PLR 708 : 1974 PLJ 418, has already upheld the vires of Section of the Act. In the aforementioned case, vires of Section 63 of the Act were challenged on the ground that the same are violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India inasmuch as it provided more than one mode of execution of award without laying down any guidelines about the circumstances, the Registrar, Cooperative Societies shall adopt a particular mode of execution in a given case. The contention raised that Section 63 of the Act is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India was repelled by their Lordships and it was held that merely because the party entitled to the benefit of two remedies to go to Civil Court or to the Collector, would not make the provisions of Sections 63 violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

According to the averments made in the writ petition, the proceedings in the Civil Court for executing the award under Section 63(a) were dismissed in default whereas according to the written statement filed by respondents No. 2 to 4, the same were withdrawn as proceedings under Section 63(c) had been initiated for the recovery of the amount due as arrears of land revenue. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that once a resortunder Section 63(a) has been made by treating the award to be a deemed decree of the Civil Court and filing an execution in the civil Court, the alternate remedy available to the respondents under clause (c) of Section 63 for effecting recovery of the amount due as arrears of land revenue stands excluded for all times to come, and the decreeholder is left with no other choice but to pursue the proceedings initiated by him before the Civil Court under Section 63(a) of the Act because the judgmentdebtor or the person against whom the award has been made cannot be vexed twice over. We do not find any substance in this submission of the learned counsel for the petitioners. The question of vexing the judgment debtor or the person against whom the award is made, twice over, does not arise under the circumstances because, firstly the execution proceedings which were filed under clause (a) of Section 63 of the Act were withdrawn as proceedings under clause (c) of Section 63 had been initiated for recovering the amount as arrears of land revenue. Secondly, only because the proceedings under Section 63(a) had been initiated and withdrawn it cannot be held that the decree holder loses his right to executing the decree by resorting to the provisions of Section 63(c) of the Act and recover the amount as arrears of land revenue. In the cage of ordinary decrees, there are various modes of executing the decree and suppose a decree holder is unable to execute the decree by restoring to one particular mode given in the Code of Civil Procedure and failing in the same would not be debarred from resorting to any other mode for executing the same. Under the circumstances, it cannot be held that in such a case, the judgment debtor had been vexed twice over. Successive applications for execution of a decree can always be filed. The principle which is applicable in respect of suits that there cannot be more than one trial for the same cause of action is not applicable in the case of execution of decrees. Vires of Section 63 of the Act, as indicated in the earlier part of this judgment, have already been upheld by this Court in Gurbachan Singh''s case (supra). Simply because two remedies for enforcing the recoveries of the dues are provided under the Act, it does not render the provisions of the Act ultra vires Article 14 of the Constitution. Similarly, in this case even though a resort was made to clause (a) of Section 63 of the Act for recovering the amount by treating the award to be a deemed decree through the Civil Court it would not debar the Society from recovering the amount due as arrears of land revenue by resorting to clause (c) of section 63 by abandoning the proceedings under clause (a) of section 63 of the Act. From a persual of Section 63 of the Act, it cannot be spelt out that there is any bar on the Society to resort to an alternate procedure by abandoning the first as given in the Act for effecting the recovery of the amount due. Otherwise also, Section 63 of the Act is for the execution of the awards. Section 63 of the Act provides three different modes in which an award may be executed. The choice of the particular mode to be adopted in a given case is left to the Society or the person in whose favour the award is made. If the Society or the person in whose favour the award is made feels at some stage of the proceedings that the award cannot be executed in a given mode then it would be open to the Society or the person in whose favour the award has been made to adopt the second or the third mode of effecting recovery under Section 63 of the Act. It cannot be held that the Society or the person in whose favour the award is made can adopt only one mode for effecting recovery of the amount due and cannot shift or resort to the other modes given under Section 63 of the Act at a later stage by abandoning its first chosen mode of effecting recovery under Section 63 for varied reasons.

The only other point raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the recovery proceedings initiated now are beyond limitation. Learned counsel for the petitioners has not placed on record copy of the recovery notice issued against the petitioners and he was unable to produce a copy of the same even during the arguments. Award against petitioner No. 1 was passed on 30.5.1974 and in the case of petitioner No. 2, it was passed on 25.4.1974. Award in case of petitioner No. 3 was passed on 25.10.1975. Appeal against the award was dismissed by the appellate authority in case of petitioner No. 3 on 19.2.1979 and the revision filed by him against the said order was dismissed by Deputy Secretary Cooperative Societies vide his order dated 21.9.1983. Execution applications under Section 63(c) of the Act were filed on 5.5.1986 against the petitioners. So far as petitioners No. 1 and 3 are concerned, the same is well within a period of 12 years provided for execution of decrees under Article 136 of the Limitation Act. Article 136 of the Limitation Act is applicable in the case of execution of decrees in the Civil Court. Learned counsel for the petitioners was unable to show that the said period of 12 years provided under Article 136 of the Limitation Act would not be applicable for effecting recovery of amount due as areas of land revenue under the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887. Proceedings initiated against all the three petitioners under Section 63 of the Act, thus cannot be held to have been filed beyond limitation.

No other argument was advanced.

For the reasons recorded above, we find no merit in this writ petition and the same is dismissed. The parties are left to bear their own costs.