Mukherjea, J.:— This Rule is directed against an order dated October 3rd, 1942, made by the Additional District Judge, Mymensingh under sec. 40A of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors' Act, reversing an order passed by the Appellate Officer of Kishoreganj under sec. 40 of the same Act. The material facts are not in dispute and may be shortly stated as follows:

The Petitioners before us advanced a sum of Rs. 35,000 to the husband of the Opposite Party on the basis of a simple mortgage bond executed by the latter on December 13th, 1928. The Petitioners instituted a suit for enforcement of the mortgage, and recovered a preliminary decree for a sum of about Rs. 40,000 on February 19th, 1937. On May 25th, 1937, the decree was made final. The final mortgage decree was put into execution in Title Execution. Case No. 66 of 1937 of the Court of the Sub-Judge at Mymensingh and a few days after the execution case was started, the judgment-debtor on June 27th, 1937, presented an application before the Domepara Debt Settlement Board for settlement of all her debts under sec. 8 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors' Act. On July 2nd, 1937, the Debt Settlement Board issued a notice under sec. 34 of the Agricultural Debtors' Act in pursuance of which further proceedings in execution were stayed. On June 14th, 1939, the Debt Settlement Board purported to determine the debts of the Opposite Party under sec. 18 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors' Act. The total amount of debts was much in excess of Rs. 25,000, and the new rules under which the jurisdiction of Debt Settlement Boards to settle debts of this description was taken away came into force on the 15th of June, 1939. It appears that the Opposite Party did not pay the fees which she was ordered to pay by the Debt Settlement Board under r. 139(1) of the Rules framed by the Local Government, within 15th June, 1939; and the Collector of Mymensingh by his order dated April 24th, 1940, directed the proceedings before the Board to be struck off, being of opinion that the determination of the debts being not completed before the 15th of June, 1939, the new rules came into operation and the Debt Settlement Board had no jurisdiction to proceed further in the matter. In accordance with this order, the proceedings were finally dismissed by the Debt Settlement Board on August 15th, 1940. The notice under sec. 34 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors' Act being withdrawn in the meantime the execution case was allowed to proceed. The Opposite Party thereupon filed a suit for a declaration that the order of the Collector dated April 24th, 1940, was illegal and ultra vires. She also preferred objections under sec. 47, C.P Code to the execution proceedings started by the Petitioners where this identical point was raised. On July 8th, 1940, the application under sec. 47, C.P Code was dismissed and an appeal taken against that order of dismissal to this Court was withdrawn on February 16th, 1942. The declaratory suit was dismissed on April 7th, 1941, and it was held by the Court that the order of the Collector was neither illegal nor ultra vires. In the mean time the mortgaged property was sold and purchased by the decree-holder. The Opposite Party thereupon made an application for setting aside the sale under Or. 21, r. 90, C.P Code. That proceeding, we are told, is still pending. On 12th April, 1942, the Opposite Party presented an application be fore the Debt Settlement Board Domepara, for review of its order dated August 15th, 1940. The Board declined to entertain the application for review at this late stage and asked the judgment-debtor to get sanction from the Collector. This sanction the Opposite Party failed to obtain and on June 7th, 1942, the application for review was rejected by the Board. On June 18th, 1942, the Opposite Party-moved the Collector for setting aside his original order dated April 24th, 1940, and this application was rejected on the 22nd July following. On August 3rd, 1942, an appeal was taken against this order of the Collector to the Appellate Officer, Kishoreganj, and the Appellate Officer dismissed the appeal on the same day, holding, inter alia that the appeal was time-barred. Against this order of the Appellate Officer the judgment-debtor filed a petition of revision under sec. 40A of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act. The Additional District Judge, Mymensingh, to whom the case was transferred, reversed the order of the Collector dated April 24th, 1940, and that of the Board made on August 15th, 1940, and directed the Board to proceed with the matter from the stage at which it was left. It is against this decision of the Additional District Judge of Mymensingh that the present rule has been obtained.

2. On hearing the learned Advocates on both sides it seems to us that the order of the Additional District Judge is not justified by the circumstances of the case and the clear provisions of sec. 40A of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act. It may be an arguable point as to whether or not the determination of a debt can be said to be complete unless the fees directed to be paid under r. 139(1) of the Rules framed under the Bengal Agricultural Debtors' Act are paid. But assuming that the payment of fees was quite a subsidiary and a fiscal matter, which did not affect the finality of the determination of a debt by the Board under sec. 18, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act, the order against which the revision petition was filed was not the order of the Board dated 15th August, 1940, or that of the Collector made on April 24th, 1940; it was directed against the order of the Appellate Officer dated August 3rd, 1942, by which he dismissed the appeal taken to him against the order of the Collector dated July 22nd, 1942. If the position taken up by the Opposite Party is correct, it was open to her to take an appeal to the Appellate Officer from the final order of dismissal made by the Debt Settlement Board on August 15th, 1940. Instead of doing that she filed a declaratory suit in the Civil Court challenging the order of the Collecotr as illegal and ultra vires. She raised the same objection by way of an application under sec. 47, C.P Code. In both these proceedings the decision was adverse to her, and it was held that the order of the Collector was neither illegal nor without jurisdiction. The application for review of the order of the Debt Settlement Board was filed on April 12th, 1942, and as nearly two years had already elapsed from the date of the order sought to be reviewed, the Board was perfectly right in refusing to entertain the application without the sanction of the Collector. There is no provision in the Act for reviewing an order of the Collector; it is the order of the Board or of the Appellate Officer that can be reviewed under sec. 44, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act. No appeal also lies from an order of the Collector under sec. 40 of the Act. If the appeal that was taken by the Opposite Party to the Appellate Officer, Kishoreganj, be regarded as an appeal from the order of the Debt Settlement Board rejecting the application for review, it was clearly time-barred. We think therefore that there was no thing illegal or improper in the order of the Appellate Officer against which the application for revision under sec. 40A, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act, was filed by the Opposite Party.

3. We think further that the interests of justice did not call for an interference by the Additional District Judge in this case. Instead of going straight to the Appellate Officer when the application for settlement of debts was dismissed by the Board, the Opposite Party proceeded to test the legality of the proceeding by instituting a regular suit in the Civil Court. The decision was unfavourable to her. She could not also succeed in the Misc. proceeding started under sec. 47, C.P Code. After carrying on a protracted litigation for nearly two years, she eventually filed an application for review of the order originally made by the Debt Settlement Board, although the remedy was quite open to her from the very beginning. In our opinion the application for review was justly rejected by the Debt Settlement Board, and it would be really an abuse of the processes of law, if the Opposite Party is now allowed to rake up all the previous proceedings. We hold therefore that the Additional District Judge was not justified in reversing the order of the Appellate Officer under sec. 40A, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act.

4. The learned Advocate for the Opposite Party in course of his arguments raised a point as to the maintainability of this application for revision under sec. 115, C.P.C He has argued that the Additional District Judge in exercise of his powers under sec. 40A of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act was not acting as a Court and consequently his orders are not revisable by us under sec. 115, C.P Code. The question we must say is not altogether free from doubt. The Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act is undoubtedly a special Act which confers special jurisdiction upon the tribunal set up by it to determine questions as to rights which are the creation of the Act. In such circumstances the legitimate conclusion is that the rights are to be determined in the manner prescribed by the Act itself to which they owe their existence and the jurisdiction that is conferred on the special tribunal is exclusive.

5. This is clear from the provisions of secs. 33 to 36 of Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act which are intended to stay the hands of the Civil Court or to render its decisions nugatory, when they come into conflict with anything done by the Board. But these provisions do not by themselves take away the jurisdiction of the High Court to interfere under sec. 115 of the Civil Procedure Code with an order made by a Court which is subordinate to it. Sec. 38 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act provides that no appeal or application for revision shall lie against any decision or order of or award by a Board except as provided in the Act. The High Court obviously has no powers of revision in respect to an order made by a Debt Settlement Board as the latter is neither a Court nor a Court subordinate to the High Court. The same view has been taken, and in our opinion correctly, with regard to our powers of revision in respect to orders made by an Appellate Officer under sec. 40 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act. To quote the words used by Sir George Rankin in Re: Allen Bros. & Co. v. Bando & Co.(1) there is no thread of connecting authority by which a relation is established between this Court and an Appellate Officer appointed under the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act. Vide Abdulla v. Giridhari Lal(2), Ramkrishna v. Ali Newaz(3). But the position seems to us to be different with regard to orders made by the District Judge or Additional District Judge under sec. 40A of the Act. This section empowers a District Judge to determine certain matters of a judicial character which lie outside his ordinary jurisdiction under the law. If the intention of the legislature is that the District Judge should determine the matter as a Court and the effect of the provision is merely to enlarge his ordinary jurisdiction, it goes without saying that the normal incidents of such jurisdiction including the rights of revision and appeal from its orders would remain intact. Vide The National Telephone Co. v. The Post Master General(4). If on the other hand the authority is to be exercised by the District Judge not as a Court but as persona designata, obviously its decisions could not be revised by this Court. When the jurisdiction is given to a judicial officer by name it is no doubt a difficult question to decide as to whether the jurisdiction is to be exercised by the person or by the Court itself over which he presides. The proviso to sec. 40A, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act in our opinion throws some light on this point. That proviso empowers the District Judge to transfer all the functions which he can exercise under sec. 40A, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act to an Additional District Judge, subordinate to him. This is a circumstance which can be held to indicate that the District Judge is to exercise the authority not in his personal capacity but as a Court, for as persona designata he cannot have any judicial officer subordinate to him. As was said by Schwabe, C.J, in K. Parthasaradhi Naidu v. C.C Kotesawara Rao(5) it is impossible to hold that a reference to a Judge with power to refer to a Court subordinate to him can mean anything else than reference to a Judge sitting as a Judge in the exercise of his ordinary jurisdiction extended for that purpose. The same view was taken in this Court in Naranarayan Mandal v. Aghore Chandra Ganguli(6). It cannot be argued that the District Judge was merely empowered by this proviso to delegate his authority as persona designata to another officer who was also mentioned by name, for it is always possible to have more than one Additional District Judge in a particular District at a particular time. It is true that under sec. 40(6) of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act the orders of the Appellate Officer have been declared to be final subject to the provisions of sec. 40A. This means that the order of an Appellate Officer cannot be challenged in any other proceeding or before any other tribunal except as provided by sec. 40A. The order of the Appellate Officer cannot certainly be challenged by way of revision in this Court but the moment it is held that the authority that the legislature has conferred on the District Judge, under sec. 40A of the Act, is exercisable by the latter as a Court, and not as persona designata, the revisional jurisdiction of the Court in respect to orders made by a subordinate Court would be automatically attracted, unless these powers are taken away by express legislation.

6. We hold therefore that an order made by the District Judge or Additional District Judge under sec. 40A, Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act is open to revision by this Court under sec. 115, C.P Code. The result is that the Rule is made absolute. The order of the Additional District Judge dated October 3rd, 1942, is set aside.

7. No order as to costs.

Blank, J.:— I agree.

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