V. Ramakrishnan vs Kandaswami Thevar and Others

N.S. Ramaswami, J.—The question that arises in this civil revision petition is, whether u/s 15 of Act XXXVIII of 1972 any period of

limitation is fixed for an application by a judgment-debtor to be tiled for amending a decree. In this case the judgment-debtor tiled an application

u/s 16 of the Act for stay of the decree on 8th October 1973. The anal decree in the mortgage suit came to be passed as early as 14th June 1972.

If the contention of the decree-holder that the judgment debtors remedy to the an application to amend decree u/s 15 is barred on the footing that

under that section an application to amend the decree can be filed only within six months from the date of publication of the Act, is correct, then the

judgment-debtor would not be a person entitled to the benefits of the Act. In that case his application u/s 16 for stay would not be maintainable,

for that section says only a person who is entitled to the benefits of the Act call apply for stay. But the question is whether on publication by a

judgment-debtor u/s 15 for amending the decree ought to be filed within six months of the date of the publication of the Act. The Act itself was

published on 15th December 1972. The application u/s 16 in which the present question has been raised, as I have said earlier, come to be filed

only on 8th October 1973, that is beyond a period of six months.

Section 15(1) is in the following terms:

Where before the publication of this Act, a...court has passed a decree for the repayment of a debt, it shall on the application of any judgment-

debtor who is a debtor within the meaning of this Act, or in respect of Hindu joint family debt, on the application of any member of the family

whether or not he is the judgment-debtor or on the application of the decree-holder within six months from the date of publication of this, Act

apply the provisions of this Act to such decree and shall notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (Central Act V

of 1908) amend the decree according or enter satisfaction, as the case may be. (Proviso omitted .

On behalf of the decree-holder it is contended that the period of six months mentioned in the above section applies to an application not only by

the decree-holder but also by a judgment-debtor. But a true grammatical construction of the section would go to show that the clause within six

months from the date of publication of this Act applies only to an application of the decree-holder and not to an application by a judgment-debtor

or a member of a joint family in the case of a joint family debt. The significant fact to be noted is that after the words on the application of a

decree-holder there is no comma. That means the subsequent clause within six months from the date of publication of this Act has to be taken on

to the clause on the application of the decree-holder and the six months period would not be attracted to the earlier clause in the said section which

deals with application by judgment-debtors or by the members of a joint family in case of joint family. In this view, the order of the Court below

granting stay, even though the application u/s 16 came to be filed more than six months after the publication of the Act till which period no

application u/s 15 having been filed, is correct. The civil revision petition fails and the same is dismissed. No costs.