P L D 1952 Dacca 301 (PLP)

"A Board may, on an application from any person interested made within ninety days of the passing of an order, review any order passed by it and pass such order in reference thereto as it thinks fit "Provided that no order shall be varied or reversed unless notice has been given to the persons interested to appear and be heard in support of such order." There is nothing on record to justify the conclusion that any application for review was placed before the Board or that there was any compliance with the provision of section 19 of the Act in this case. Hence, the finding of the learned Addition Subordinate judge that the second application may be considered as an application for review is not supported by any data and cannot be sustained. The contention of Mr: Pal that the Debt Conciliation Board had no jurisdiction to entertain a second application in respect of the same debt after dismissal of the first application prevails. Mr. Pal's second contention is that the Civil Court having received no stay order from the Debt Conciliation Board, it ought to have been held that it was within the jurisdiction of the Civil Court to proceed with the execution case. It seems that the learned Additional Subordinate judge holds the view that as the second application was entertained by the Board, the proceedings of the Civil Court ought to have been stayed under section 21 (1) of the Act, no matter whether any notice was issued or not. In this connection the learned Munsif finds that under the Assam Debt Conciliation Act there is no statutory provisions for the issue of notice as it is under section 34 of the Bengal Debtors Act but the provisions for the issue of a certificate is only made by Rules framed under section 4 of the Act and, therefore, as soon as an applica tion made before the Board under section 4 of the Act any proceeding then pending in a Civil Court relating to that debt should be automatically suspended irrespective of any notice to the Court. It would, therefore, be necessary to quote section 21 (1) of the Act and also Rule 25 which is framed under the Assam Debt Conciliation Act, 1936, as these two read together will throw some light on the question whether all proceedings in the Civil Court are to be suspended irrespective of the Court's receiving any notice of it or not Section 21 (1) is in these terms "When an application has been made to a Board under section 4, any suit or other proceedings then pending before a Civil Court in respect of any debt for the settlement of which application has been made shall be suspended until the disposal of the application." It. therefore, follows that as soon as an application is made before a Board any proceedings in respect of the same pending before a Civil Court shall be suspended. The expression "shall be suspended" occurring in section 21 (1) of the Act, in my opinion, cannot but mean that it shall be suspended by the order of the Court itself, in other words, the Civil Court must have some knowledge of the application before‑ the Board before it can suspend its proceedings, Now, how is the Civil Court to know whether any application has been made before the Board or not and it is only to avoid any legal complication, arising out of this that provision has been made under Rule 25 as to what steps are required to be taken so as to apprise the Civil Court of the action taken before the Board. That is to be found in Rule 25 which is to the following effect "If at any time during the course of the proceedings it appears to the Board that any creditor has filed a suit or started any other proceedings which should be suspended under section 21 of the Act, the Board shall grant a certificate in Form No. IV appended to these rules over the signature of the Chairman to the debtor concerned, specify ing the debts owing to any such creditor which may be under settlement." Certificate in Form No. IV is as follows " Certificate under section 21 of the Assam Debt Conciliation Act, 1936 (Rule 25) This is to certify that an application has been made to this Board for settlement of the debts .of .among which is a debt of Rs which the aforesaid debtor is said to be owing to of (creditor). Dated .the day of ..............193 (Seal of the Board). Signature of Chairman, ..Debt Conciliation Board District. The above Rule 25 is an enabling rule of which the debtor can make use of for the purpose of obtaining a stay of proceedings pending before a Civil Court. If a debtor chooses not to in form the Civil Court as to the steps he has taken before the Board, any action taken by the Court while the application was pending before the Board cannot be said to be invalid or without jurisdiction. It will be seen that when the first application, which was later on withdrawn, was made a certifi cate under section 21 of the Assam Debt Conciliation Act, 1936, was received by the Civil Court and the Board while considering the application for withdrawal passed the order that the certificate issued under section 21 (1) of the Assam Debt Conciliation Act, stood cancelled. It is somewhat strange that when the second application was made before the Board no step was taken to send similar certificate to the Civil Court. Though it is sought to be made out that certificate under Rule 25 was issued, curiously enough records of the Civil Court do not show that the Court received any such intimation. If the Civil Court was informed that an application was pending before the Board it was bound to act under section 21 of the Act. The Court obviously cannot be expected to act of which it had no knowledge. My view finds support from the case of Rash Mohan Chaudhury v. Nabin Chandra Pal 53 C W N (I D R) 143, where Akram, C. J. held that in a case where neither a notice under section 34 of the Bengal Agri cultural Debtors Act was served nor was any intimation given to the executing Court apprising the Court of the pendency of an application before the Debt Settlement Board, proceedings confirming the sale during the pendency of such proceedings before the Debt Settlement Board cannot be said to be invalid or without jurisdiction and treated as a nullity. Applying the same principle of law, as enunciated in the above case and notwithstanding the fact that similar provision like section 34 of the Bengal Agricultural Debtors Act is not to be found in the Assam Debt Conciliation Act, I am of opinion that the proper interpretation in such a case would be that the Civil Court ought to have been apprised of the steps taken by the debtors before the Board and if no such notice was given to the C Civil Court and Civil Court had proceeded in execution and confirmed the sale, the step taken in execution by the Civil Court in such circumstances cannot be questioned. It will appear from the following observations of the learned Munsif that he was not unmindful of the legal position but nevertheless he failed to give effect to it "It is true that the mere production of a copy of the Board's Peon Book (Exh. 3) is not sufficient to prove that the certificate was actually delivered to the Office of this Court on 21st May 1945. The judgment‑debtors should have done something more." It will further be seen that it is the mandatory provision of the Act to send the notice of the order of the Board by regis tered post to the debtor and creditors under subsection 2 of section 7 of the Act. But this notice also was received by the decree‑holders after the sale had already taken place on 19th June 1945, although the second application was filed before the Board as far back as on 21st May 1945. Why there was such a delay in service of this notice cannot be understood. So this contention of Mr. Pal also has substance and I hold that the Civil Court had jurisdiction to proceed with the execution case in absence of any notice or intimation of any stay order from the Board. Mr. Pal contends, lastly, that in view of the facts and circumstances and the materials on record in this case the Courts below ought to have held that the order of the Debt Conciliation Board discharging the judgment‑debtors was not a proper and valid order. He further contends that the lower appellate Court did not come to any decision on this point. In this connection the learned Munsif found that when the decree‑holders received the notice from the Board though subsequent to the sale they should have appeared before the Board and should have informed the Board that the sale had already been held. Whether they did not appear before the Board for the reason that by the time they received the notice the sale had already been held and confirmed or for any other reason does not make much difference in the case at all. It is to be seen if debt can be duly discharged due to non compliance of the provisions of subsection (2) of section 8 of the Act or not. The section runs as follows : "Every debt of which a statement is not submitted to the Board in compliance with the provisions of subsection (1) shall be deemed for all purposes and all occasions to have been duly discharged." Subsection (1) of section 8 speaks of notice calling upon creditors to submit statement of debts. Mr. Pal contends that when the sale has already taken place and has been confirmed there is no liability existing and the debt has been wiped out and extinguished, and, therefore, the question of the decree holders compliance or non‑compliance with the terms of the notice and his appearance or non‑appearance before the Board makes no difference at all. In this case it is apparent that at the time when the notice was served on the decree‑holders the sale had already taken place and was confirmed. So whether the decree‑holders appeared or did not appear before the Board is immaterial as, at that time, in my opinion, there was no debt subsisting to effect a settlement between the judgment‑debtors and the decree‑holders and in this view of the matter the question of the debt, being discharged for all purposes and all occasions cannot arise. The reasoning of the learned Munsif on the validity of the discharge order does not appear to me to be correct as, it seems, that he has based his finding on mere surmises rather than on the facts as they are on records and the law applicable to the case and hence the view that the debt is discharged cannot be accepted. It also appears that the appellate Court has not come to any decision at all whether the discharge order by the Debt Conciliation Board was main tainable or not. It further seems to me, as already pointed out, that the Additional Subordinate judge simply adopted the views of the Munsif without assigning his own reasons as to why the findings of the Munsif should be accepted by him. I, therefore, find that both the Courts below have gone wrong in their interpretation of the relevant sections of the Act. The contention of Mr. Pal on this point also is sustained. The learned Additional Subordinate Judge has referred to the provisions of section 16 of the Act and has observed that the decree‑holders cannot now question the validity of the Board's proceedings. The importance of putting a reasonable interpretation on the section is to be found in Maxwell on the interpretation of Statute where it is said that we ought to give the words their plain, fair; literal and natural meaning where we do not see from its scope that such meaning would be in consistent, or would lead to manifest injustice. In the light of this, let us see what the section says. Section 16 runs as follows : "No Civil Court shall entertain

(a) any suit or proceeding in respect of‑

(i) any matter pending before a Board, or (ii) the validity of any procedure or the legality of any agreement made under this Act, or (iv) the recovery of any debt which has been deemed to have been duly discharged under subsection (2) of section 8. except a debt which is revived under the proviso to the subsection. In my view the word "entertain" as used in section 16 of the Act means "to receive and to take into consideration" and, therefore, it signifies initially the duty of the Court when proceeding is sought to be started before it. In this view of the matter section 16 cannot be a bar to any proceeding being continued by the Civil Court when once the proceeding had already commenced before it, but if no proceeding was pending in the Civil Court and if the debtor had applied to the Debt Conciliation Board first for relief and the debt was discharged in consequence of the Board's order then no proceeding in the face of it could be supported in the Civil Court. That, in my opinion, would be a bar. In the present case there is no doubt that proceeding before the Civil Court was already going on and thereafter the judgment‑debtors moved the Board of which no notice was given to the Civil Court. Applying the relevant provisions to the facts of the present case it must be held that the jurisdiction of the Civil Court cannot be ousted by virtue of the order of the Board. If any other interpreta tion is given to the section on the facts of this case that would, in my opinion, lead to inconsistency and would result in injustice. The result, therefore, is that this appeal is allowed. The judgments and orders of the Courts below are set aside and the application under section 47, Civil P. C., is dismissed. As the Respondents have not appeared, there will be no order as to costs. A. H. Appeal allowed.