M. Ramanathan Chettiar and Another vs Pr. Km. Subramaniam Chettiar

King, J.—This petition raises a question u/s 25 of the Madras Debt Conciliation Act. The facts are that the petitioner applied to the Debt

Conciliation Board under the Act in February, 1939. His application was allowed to remain pending for eight months and was then dismissed, the

Board granting him in its order of dismissal liberty to apply again. While the first application was pending, stay of execution of a decree against the

petitioner was in force. The second application was made in February, 1940, and the petitioner again applied for stay of execution of the same

decree. Stay was refused by the learned Subordinate Judge, and the question at issue in this revision petition is whether the learned Judge had any

jurisdiction to refuse stay.

It is conceded by the learned advocate for the petitioner in his argument before me that if the application to the Board of February, 1940, is to

be treated as a new application in respect of the same debt, no stay can be granted. This has been laid down by Judges of this Court in In Re:

Ellappa Chettiar, and in Roopchand Merlacha Vs. Sha Motaji Mokanaji, . He therefore contends that in effect the application made in February,

1940, having been made under the express permission granted by the Board to renew the previous application, must be treated as if it was a

restoration of the previous application and therefore that the rulings which have been cited present no obstacle to his obtaining an order for stay.

He has cited in his favour a case decided by Wadsworth, J., in Roopchand Merlacha Vs. Sha Motaji Mokanaji, . That case dealt with an

application which was rejected by the Board u/s 7 as it did not comply with the requirements of Ss, 5 and 6. But as pointed out in the latter

decision Roopchand Merlacha Vs. Sha Motaji Mokanaji, there is a very important distinction between an application dismissed u/s 7 and an

application dismissed in the ordinary course u/s 9. The rejection of an application u/s 7, it is expressly provided, shall not preclude the applicant

from making a fresh application whereas there is no such provision to be found in Section 9. It does not seem to me therefore that a case which

deals with the rejection of an application u/s 7 can be of any assistance to the petitioner in the present petition.

This distinction between Section 7 and Section 9 would appear to make the permission granted by the Debt Conciliation Board in dismissing the

application a permission which it had no jurisdiction to grant. Even if the Board had jurisdiction to allow a petition to be suspended in this way for

an unlimited period it is clear that the effect of their decision in the present case has been to contravene the provisions of Section 17. Section 17

provides that an application must be dismissed if no amicable settlement has been arrived at u/s 14 within twelve months from its date. It will be

seen that if the two applications in the present case are treated as one, more than twelve months had actually elapsed from the date when the

application was first made to the date when the present petition for stay of execution was put in. On the ground that the Debt Conciliation Board

had no jurisdiction to extend the consideration of the application over a period of more than twelve months and also on the ground that on the

merits of the case I can see no reason whatever for the granting of any order of stay to the petitioner I refuse to interfere with the decision of the

learned Subordinate Judge and dismiss this petition with costs.