Kapur, J.:— This reference was made by me in order to decide the question of court fee and other matters which stem from it. The Union of Indp brought an appeal against a ‘decree’ passed by an Amritsar Tribunal on the 7th December, 1953, “decreeing” against the Union of India a sum of Rs. 5,151/10/6.

2. Amolak Ram Sethi carried on business of selling fruits in Rawalpindi and in Jammu. He sent three consignments of fruits from Jammu Tawi to Delhi addressed to firm Harbans Lal Om Parkash. The first was dated the 12th August, 1947, and the other two were dated the 27th August, 1947, and as the goods were not delivered to the consignees at Delhi a claim was made under section 13 of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act (LXX of 1951) for a sum of Rs. 24,206/3/- as compensation for non-delivery before a Tribunal constituted under the Act. As the two consignments dated the 27th August, 1947, were made after the partition the petition with regard to them was dismissed as no claim could be made against the Union of India in respect of these consignments but the claim in regard to the consignment which was sent on the 12th August, 1947, was ‘decreed’ and the Union has come up in appeal to this Court.

3. Mr. Panna Lal Bahl took a preliminary objection that the ‘decree’ was not properly stamped as it required full court-fee. The determination of this question must depend upon the provisions of the various Acts, i.e the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act (LXX of 1951), the Code of Civil Procedure and the Court Fees Act.

4. The original petitioners made an application under section 13 which provides for claims by displaced creditors against persons who are not displaced debtors and the procedure is laid down in section 14 which runs as under:—

“14. Procedure on displaced creditor's petition.—(1) Where an application under section 13 has been made to the Tribunal, the Tribunal shall cause notice thereof to be given to the debtor, calling upon him to show cause, if any, against the application.

(2) If there is a dispute as to whether the applicant is a displaced creditor or not or as to the existence of the debt or as to the amount thereof, the Tribunal shall decide the matter, after taking such evidence as may be produced before it, and pass such decree in relation thereto as it thinks fit.

(3) If there is no such dispute or if the debtor does not appear or has no cause to show, the Tribunal may, after considering the evidence placed before it, pass such decree in relation thereto as it thinks fit.”

5. By section 14(2) the Tribunal is called upon to decide—

(1) whether the creditor is a displaced person or not;

(2) whether there is a debt or not; and

(3) the amount.

6. And after the decision of these three points the Tribunal can pass such decree in relation thereto as it thinks fit. The requisite contents of a decree are set out in section 27 of the Debts Adjustment Act in the following words:—

“In all cases in which the Tribunal passes a decree on the application of a displaced person, it shall prepare a complete schedule of the creditors and of the assets and liabilities of the displaced person.

7. The execution of the decree so passed is provided in section 28 which makes the civil Court competent to execute the decree or order passed by a Tribunal in the same manner as it would have done if it were a decree or order passed by a civil Court. The procedure to be followed in the trial of these applications made under the various sections of this Act is to be in accordance with the Civil Procedure Code and the Indian Limitation Act applies to institution of proceedings under the Act but under section 3 the Act and the rules and orders made thereunder have an overriding effect.

8. There are certain distinguishing features in the applications which are made under various sections of the Act. Under section 5 a displaced debtor has to state where he resides, he has to attach to his application a schedule containing full particulars of his debts, of his properties movable and immovable and a schedule of all properties in respect of which he has submitted a claim to the registering officer under the Displaced Persons (Claims) Act, and such an application can be rejected where any of the provisions contained in section 5 are not complied with. Section 10 provides that any displaced creditor having a claim against a displaced debtor may make an application and then the displaced debtor can come in and make an application on his own behalf under section 5 giving the particulars etc., which I have indicated above. And section 13 deals with claims by displaced persons and, as I have said before, the procedure for such application is given in section 14(2). Thus the proceeding is not initiated by a plaint but merely by an application and in order to decide an application under section 13 certain collateral matters have to be decided and when the matter is finally decided the ‘decree’ which is passed has to contain a complete schedule of the creditors and of the assets and liabilities of the displaced person.

9. Besides, in certain cases which may not come under sections 13 and 14 of the Act the Tribunal will have to decide the paying capacity, and to take into account the agreement entered into by creditors of the two thirds of the value of the debts owed by a debtor. All these provisions show that not only is such an application not initiated by a plaint but even when finally deciding the matter the Tribunal has to determine so many other matters.

10. The Code of Civil Procedure defines ‘decree’ in section 2(2) to mean the formal expression of an adjudication which, so far as regards the Court expressing it, conclusively determines the rights of the parties with regard to all or any of the matters in controversy in the suit and may be either preliminary or final. It shall be deemed to include the rejection of a plaint and the determination of any question under sections 47 and 144 of the Code. The forms of the decrees are given in Appendix D. Under Order 20 a judgment has to be pronounced in open Court and a decree follows the contents of which are given in rule 6 of Order 20 which are—

“(1) The decree shall agree with the judgment; it shall contain the number of the suit, the names and descriptions of the parties, and particulars of the claim, and shall specify clearly the relief granted or other determination of the suit.

(2) The decree shall also state the amount of costs incurred in the suit, and by whom or out of what property and in what proportions such costs are to be paid.

(3) The Court may direct that the costs payable to one party by the other shall be set off against any sum which is admitted or found to be due from the former to the latter.”

11. And these contents are quite different from what are contained in section 27 of the Debts Adjustment Act. It is no doubt true that under section 25 the Code of Civil Procedure is applicable but that is subject to the provisions of the Act and the rules. But that does not mean that any decree passed under section 14 of the Debts Adjustment Act becomes a decree under section 2(2) of the Code.

12. The appeal section is section 40 which provides for an appeal against any final decree or order of the Tribunal and it is not quite clear what this expression means. The word ‘final’ has become a word of art and is used in regard to decrees in contradistinction to preliminary decrees. Under section 96 of the Code every decree of a Court is appealable excepting the decree of a Small, Cause Court and it is not quite clear why the framers of the Act used the words “final decree”. In any case whether” an appeal is to be taken against a decree or a final decree the decree under the Debts Adjustment Act is not a decree under the Code.

13. This Court in two cases has expressed its opinion which help in the determination of the matter now before me. In First Appeal from Order No. 122 of 1954, Narinder Singh v. Mata Din Ram Narain, an appeal against a decree under the Debts Adjustment Act was placed before a Division Bench and it was held that an order of the Tribunal dismissing a petition is not a decree and an appeal against such an order must be heard by a Single Judge. In a later case Letters Patent Appeal No. 34 of 1954, Sant Ram v. Krithan Gopal, an application was made by a minor through his mother for the recovery of a large sum of money. Preliminary objections were taken on the ground of limitation and on the ground that the mother was not competent to filo a second application which was dismissed on the ground that the mother was not a properly appointed guardian and, therefore, the petition was incompetent. An appeal was brought to this Court and Khosla J. held that the mother was a competent person to bring the suit and remanded the case for trial to the Tribunal. Another objection taken before Khosla J. was that, the appeal was incompetent as it was not accompanied by a copy of the decree of the Tribunal and this was overruled on the ground that no decree was required to be framed in these cases and no copy of the decree was necessary. In the Letters Patent Appeal it was contended that an order dismissing the application was a decree and a copy was, therefore, necessary. But it was held that a decree is to be passed after the Tribunal determines the claim and not when it dismisses it on other grounds. If the matter had been under the Civil Procedure Code initiated by a plaint whatever be the grounds of dismissal of the claim unless it expressly did not fall within section 2(2) it would be a decree and in the two Division Bench judgments of this Court it was held that such dismissals are not decrees which go to help the contention of the appellant that decree as given in section 27 is something different from a decree under the Code of Civil Procedure.

14. I shall now come to the provisions of the Court-fees Act. Section 4 of the Act makes certain documents chargeable to court-fee. Schedule II, Article 11, provides for fees to be paid on memorandum of appeal when the appeal is not from a decree or an order having the force of a decree and is presented to a High Court * * *. Schedule I, Article 1 provides—

“Plaint, written statement pleading a set off or counter claim or memorandum of appeal (not otherwise provided for in this Act) or cross-objection presented to any Civil or Revenue Court except those mentioned in section 3.”

15. This Act is without a preamble. In the definition section “appeal” is not defined but according to law it is a continuation of a “suit which would thus include a first or a second appeal from a decree in a suit and also a Letters Patent Appeal. Article 1 of Schedule 1 is a residuary Article and applies to plaints, written statements, pleadings, as set off or counter claim or memorandum of appeal. Now, these are all words which are used in connection with suits and in my opinion they must be read ejusdem generis and it cannot be said that plaint and written statement will have the same meaning as they have in the Code of Civil Procedure but the memorandum of appeal will have a different connotation unless of course the statute specifically says otherwise. On this interpretation, therefore, unless there is something to the contrary in any particular statute these words used in Article 1 of Schedule I must be road to mean plaints etc., as used in the Code of Civil Procedure. The memorandum of appeal in the Article must be read to be memorandum of appeal as given in the Code of Civil Procedure unless the provisions of another statute can be so interpreted to include this as being applicable to the proceedings in that statute also.

16. Quite recently this very question came for decision before a learned Taxation Judge of the Bombay High Court in Taxing Officer v. Jamnadas Dharamdas . 1956 Bom. L.R 139., where it was held that court-fee required to be paid on a memorandum of appeal under section 40 of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act is a fixed court-fee under Schedule II, Article 11, of the Court-fees Act and that the Act was meant for adjusting liabilities of a debtor by scaling down his debts and for satisfaction of his liabilities, and merely because an award has been called a decree it cannot be called a decree within the meaning of section 2(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure. After referring to the various provisions of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act and the relevant provisions of the Code the learned Judge was of the opinion that it did not fall under Schedule I, Article 1. An argument was sought to be raised there that there was a distinction between a decree passed when an application is made under, section 5 and that when it is made under section 13 but this contention was repelled and if I may with respect say so rightly. Whether an adjudication is under section 9 or it is under section 14 the adjudication is a decree and there is no reason for making any distinction in regard to the meaning of the same word when it is used in regard to adjudication of section 5 applications or adjudication of section 13 applications.

17. In Upadhya Thakur v. Persidh Singh . I.L.R 23 Cal. 723., a number of tenants were defendants in a proceeding for settlement of rents under section 104, clause 2 of the Bengal Tenancy Act, which was decided by a Revenue Officer and an appeal against this decision was taken by the landlord under section 108 of the Act and the question to be decided was what was the amount of court-fee payable on appeal by the landlord. It was held by the Full Bench that the appeal did not require ad valorem court-fee as the proceedings were initiated by an application and not by a plaint and that there was no Article of the Court-fees Act which was expressly applicable to the memorandum of appeal. They held that such a memorandum of appeal was an application. My learned brother Falshaw J. informs me that in case decided by him F.A.O No. 56.D of 1955, it was held that an appeal falling under section 27 of the Act does not require court-fee under Schedule I, Article 1. A similar matter was decided in the Lahore High Court in Punjab Province v. Raja Dihan Singh . 57 P.L.R 14. by a learned Taxing Judge (Teja Singh, J.). The question for decision was the amount of court-fee to be paid on an award made by a District Judge appointed as an arbitrator under the Defence of India Act and the Rules made thereunder and it was held that it fell within Article 11 of Schedule II and not under Article 1 of Schedule I. The reason given by the learned Judge was that the proceedings before the District Judge were not a suit and he also held that even if an order made by statute is enforceable as a decree it does not become an order having the force of a decree and he relied upon Official Liquidator Universal Bank Limited v. M.U Qureshi . A.I.R 1945 Lab. 146. F.B., where Sale J. Said at page 148:—

“But, in my view, there is a distinction, both real and practical, and not merely artificial, as the learned A.A.G contends, between an order that has by statute the force of a decree and an order that may by statute be enforced in the same manner as a decree. An order that is given by statute the force of a decree is an order that proprio vigore stands as a decree whatever the consequences, whereas an order that may by statute be enforced as a decree is an order that may be of little or no effect, proprio vigore, and only becomes effective, when executed by the method by which a decree may be executed. In other words, it is a mere shadow unless and until ??? is infused into it by an application for execution. The Murrary Oxford Dictionary makes a clear distinction between “force” and “enforceability”. It is a well recognised rule of interpretation of statutes, as the learned Assistant to the Advocate-General concedes, that there is a presumption that the Legislature meant different phraseology; and when it describes an order as having the force of a decree it must mean something different from the description of an order which may be enforced in the same manner as a decree.”

18. In the Full Bench case Sale J. relied on a judgment of the Allahabad High Court in Reference under section 28 of Act 7 of 18706, which was decided by Burkitt J. as a Taxing Judge.

19. Mr. Panna Lal Bahl has drawn our attention to several Allahabad cases which seem to take a different view. The first case is Sita Ram v. Mool Chand . A.I.R 1954 All. 672., which was a matter arising under section 13 of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act and it was held that the decree passed in such a proceeding was a decree which required ad valorem court-fee under Schedule I, Article 1. The learned Judge held that the definition of the word ‘decree’ as given in the Civil Procedure Code was no guide in such a case. There the petition under section 13 was dismissed on the ground of its non-maintainability. The Full Bench judgment of the Calcutta High Court does not seem to have been brought to the notice of the learned Taxing Judge. The counsel then relied on a judgment of the Rajasthan High Court in Kishandas v. Parasram . A.I.R 1955 Raj. 81., in which it was held that the court fee payable on the memorandum of appeal in that case was to be governed by Schedule I, Article 1, on the ground, that whatever may have been presented to the Tribunal, what was presented to the appellate Court was a memorandum of appeal and therefore ad valorem court-fee was required. Here again the Full Bench judgment of the Calcutta High Court was not referred to and with due respect I am unable to agree with the view taken by the learned Chief Justice.

20. Mr. Panna Lal Bahl then referred to some cases under the U.P Encumbered Estates Act. The first case he has relied on is Jagdish Pratap v. Udai Pratap . A.I.R 1938 All. 97 F.B.. An appeal was there brought from a simple money decree passed by a Sepecial Judge under section 14 of the U.P Encumbered Estates Act and it was held that in appeal against the decree of a Special Judge ad valorem court-fee was payable as the words “memorandum of appeal” in that Article covered a decree passed in those proceedings. But sub-section (7) of section 14 provides that such a decree shall be deemed to be a decree of a civil Court of competent jurisdiction and that in my opinion is the point of distinction and this seems to be the main ground on which the decision in favour of ad valorem court-fee was given. The other cases relied upon are Lal Baijnath Singh v. Tuhhi Ram . A.I.R 1937 Oudh 501., which was also a case under the U.P Encumbered Estates Act, and a similar view was taken; so was the case in Kalbe Haider v. Ali Akbar . A.I.R 1944 Oudh 113.. Mr. Panna Lal Bahl then relied on another Allahabad case Miss Eva Mountstephens v. Mr. Hunter Garnett Orme . I.L.R 35 All. 448., where it was held that an Order of a District Judge granting or refusing probate of a will on an application made under section 244 is a decree within the meaning of section 2 of, the Code of Civil Procedure and the court fee payable was under Article 17, clause (vi) of Schedule II. The matter was decided on the practice of the Allahabad High Court that appeals from decisions of a Single Judge under the Probate and Administration Act had been treated as appeal from decrees. Reliance was also placed on another judgment but this ruse in my opinion is not relevant to the matter before us.

21. The Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act has been enacted for the relief of a class of persons called the ‘displaced persons’ and the object was a remedial and beneficial one and in my opinion it could not have been intended that the court-fee payable on such decrees in appeal should; be ad valorem. The preamble, the provisions and the procedure and also certain concessions in regard to interest, exemption from arrest, reliefs in the matter of attachment, scaling down of debts, getting all the creditors of a particular debtor together and then determining the paying capacity of the debtor all show that the object was to give relief to the displaced persons and a beneficial interpretation must be put on the words used. In The Great American Insurance Company Limited v. Attar Singh . 56 P.L.R 246.. I had an occasion to deal with various cases which have taken this view and that has been accepted by the Supreme Court in Ram Taran v. D.J Hill . 1950 C.W.N S.C.R 74.. Lord Atkin delivering the judgment of the Judicial Committee in Thakur Raghuraj v. Harikesan . 48 C.W.N 439., said:—

“The words of a remedial statute must be construed so far as they reasonably admit so as to secure that the relief contemplated by the statute shall not be denied to the class intended to be relieved”.

22. A similar opinion was expressed in Seaford Court Estates Limited v. Asher . 1949 2 A.E.R 155 at p. 164., by Denning L.J

23. Counsel for the appellant wishes to raise an argument under section 4 of the Court-fees Act and in my opinion it is not necessary to go into that matter.

24. Taking all these considerations into account, I am of the opinion that the appeal in a matter falling under section 40 of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act does not require ad valorem court-fee under Article 1 of Schedule I, but falls under Article 11 of Schedule II. Costs will be costs in the cause. The case will now go back to a learned Single Judge for decision in accordance with law.

25. Falshaw, J.:— I agree.

43. Reference answered.