The petitioner sued on a promissory note dated the 16th March, 1942 for a sum of Rs. 1818-3-0, executed in settlement of previous debts, one of May 1939 and the other of June 1939. The suit promissory note carried compound interest. It was admitted in the lower Court that the respondent was an agriculturist entitled to relief under Madras Act IV of 1938. The lower Court in applying S. 13 of that Act, has apparently laboured under the misapprehension that S. 13 was to be applied not to the actual suit contract, but to the previous debts which it superseded. There is nothing in S. 13 which imports the explanation to S. 8 and allows the Court to go behind the contract. The defendant may of course raise contentions under the ordinary law such as failure of consideration or a plea that the suit debt is nothing more than an acknowledgment of the antecedent debt, which would justify the Court into going into the amount due under the antecedent debt. The defendant did in fact raised the contention that when the defendant signed the suit promissory note he did so under the representation that the amount for which he signed was only the amount due on applying the provisions of Act IV of 1938. Unfortunately the defendant adduced no evidence, probably because under a misapprehension of the law shared by the lower Court, it was thought that evidence was unnecessary.
It is pointed out for the respondent that the suit contract is one which will come within the purview of the Madras amendment of the Usurious Loans Act, if it is established that the defendant is an agriculturist within the meaning of that Act, to which, a somewhat different definition of an agriculturist applies from that embodied in Act IV of 1938. It is quite clear that the Court is not bound to go into any question of the Usurious Loans Act, unless there is a pleading and evidence in support of it. The defendant's case has been mismanaged in the Court below. I do not feel inclined to give a decree without giving the defendant a further opportunity to let in evidence, as it appears likely that the failure of the defendant to let in evidence may have been due to the legal misconceptions under which the learned trial Judge was labouring. The defendant should, however, pay the costs of this revision, which have been necessitated to a large extent by his negligence.
The revision petition is allowed with costs and the suit is remanded to the lower Court for fresh disposal after allowing both parties to adduce further evidence.
N.R.R