Vadakkunnadhan Devaswam Utama, His Highness the Maharaja of Cochin, by recognised agent the Secretary to the Government of Cochin vs Perali Kunnath Tarwad Karnavan and Manager Madhava Menon

Wadsworth, J.—The appellant is the Secretary to the Government of Cochin in his capacity as jenmi of certain lands in British India, For

these lands he obtained a decree for rent for the period from 1930 to 1935. The tenant filed two applications under Madras Act IV of 1938, one

purporting to be under Sections 15 and 16 of the Act praying the Court to receive a deposit of the last two years'' rent and cancel the arrears

embodied in the decree and the other purporting to be u/s 19 of the Act to record satisfaction of the decree by reason of the discharge to be

ordered under the connected petition. The trial Court held that the deposit made fully discharged the arrears of rent for the two prescribed faslis

and having accepted the deposit, it directed full satisfaction of the decree to be recorded. Against this latter order an appeal was filed before the

learned District Judge who took the same view of the kanom document as that taken by the trial Court and dismissed the appeal. A second appeal

has been preferred as against the appellate order u/s 47 of the CPC and a preliminary objection has been taken that no appeal lies-

The Full Bench in A.S. Nagappa Chettiar and Another Vs. Annapoorani Achi alias Karuppayi Achi and Another, , were concerned with an

appeal from an order u/s 19 of the Act relating to a decree, for a debt. The learned Judges, held that the rule providing an appeal was ultra vires

and that : the decision in Pakkiri Muhammad Tharaganar Vs. U.T. Syed Sahib, , was right in so far as it holds that an order u/s 19 of the Madras

Agriculturists'' Relief Act is not appealable u/s 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure, even though an execution application be pending at the time. It

was pointed out that when dealing with applications u/s 19, the Court was not acting in execution, its function being merely to apply the provisions

of the Act to decrees against persons who are entitled to relief under the Act. It has been argued by Mr. Venkatarama Sastriar for the appellant

that this decision has no ''application; to the present case. We have on several occasions pointed out that Section 19 in terms applies only to a

decree for the repayment of a debt and this does not having regard to the definition of ''debt'' in the Act include a decree for rent. We pointed out,

however, in Ramadoss Reddiar Vs. Munuswami Reddiar, , that a procedure analogous to that laid down in Section 19 has necessarily to be

applied to decrees for rent in order to give effect to the provisions of Section 15 (1) of the Act which requires,that on the performance of certain

acts rents outstanding on the date of the Commencement of the Act shall be deemed to be discharged whether the rent be due as such or whether

a decree has been obtained therefor. One of us sitting separately has in Sri Raja Velugoti Venkata Rajagopala Krishna Yachendra Bahadur Varu

Vs. Kuram Venkata Seshacharlu, , following this decision,, held that an application for relief u/s 15 by the amendment or discharge of a decree for

rent has to be made to the Court which passed the decree, as is the case with an application u/s 19. Another of us in an unreported case, A.A.O.

No. 298 of 1940 has applied the principle of the Full Bench decision that the proceedings u/s 19 are not proceedings in execution covered, by

Section 47 of the Code of Civil, Procedure, to proceedings u/s 15, with the consequence that no appeal lies from an order refusing relief under that

section in the case of a decree.

Mr. Venkatarama Sastriar has argued ''that, whereas in respect of a decree for a debt a special procedure is laid down in. Section 19 for the

amendment or satisfaction of that decree in accordance with the provisions of Act IV, no such procedure is laid down for a similar process in

connection with decrees for rent in Section 15. He concedes that when u/s 19 a procedure has. been laid down without any right of appeal, it

would be wrong, as the Full Bench has held, to graft a right of appeal on to that procedure either by rule or by treating the special procedure as

one in execution. He contends, however, that u/s 15 the right is given but no procedure for implementing that right in the case of decrees is laid

down, so that an aggrieved party is necessarily thrown back upon the ordinary procedure, which is the. procedure in execution and therefore he

must necessarily get the executing Court to record satisfaction of the decree which is deemed to be discharged by the process contemplated in

Section 15 of Act IV. That, no doubt, is a very arguable point of view, but it seems to us to run contrary to the line of decided cases relating to this

Act. The view taken by the Full Bench clearly is that the statutory procedure for the amendment of a decree in order to give effect to the scaling

down provisions is not a procedure in execution at all and that proceedings under the Madras Agriculturists'' Relief Act for the amendment of a

decree or recording-satisfaction of a decree are independent proceedings to which Section 47 of the CPC can have no application. It would in our

opinion be anomalous to hold that when the procedure explicitly laid down for decrees for debts is not a procedure in execution, the analogous

procedure which we have approved for decrees for rent is a procedure in execution, and to hold so-would, of course, involve the consequence

that the procedure in each case would have to be worked out not by the Court which passed the decree but by the executing Court, which is not

the process contemplated by Section 19 Having regard to the cases cited, while recognising the possibility that a different view might have been

taken from that which the Courts have taken, we feel constrained to hold that, a proceeding u/s 15 for the amendment or discharge of a decree for

rent is not a proceeding in execution but a special proceeding under a special statute, and that, in the absence of any provision for a right of appeal,

no appeal lies.

We have been asked to treat this appeal as a revision petition, but in our opinion, there are no grounds for interference in revision. The Courts

below have taken a view of the effect of the instrument which certainly cannot be deemed to be unreason-able, although it is, perhaps, not the only

view which might betaken. But there is no error relating to jurisdiction. The appeal is therefore dismissed with costs.