JUDGMENT 1. The appellant borrowed Rs. 12,000 from the respondents on 27th February 1929 on the security of his house at Dacca. The mortgage instrument provided for compound interest at the rate of 9 3/4 per cent. per annum. On 8th October 1937 an account was made up and a sum of Rs. 24,000 was found due to the mortgagees. Apparently interest was calculated at the bond rate in making up this account. On that date the appellant by a registered conveyance (Ex. A) sold the mortgaged premises to the respondents in consideration of the said sum, which as we have already stated, represented the amount of the loan then due. On 1st September 1940, the Bengal Money-lenders Act came into force. On 6th February 1941 the appellant instituted the suit in which this appeal arises for relief under S. 36 (1) of that Act. He asked the Court to re-open the said sale, and determine the amount of his indebtedness by scaling down interest, give him back possession and to allow him to pay the amount that may be found due by instalments. He stated in his plaint that after the mortgage he had improved the mortgaged premises at considerable costs, and that if interest was calculated in terms of S. 30 of the Act and the payments made by him and the costs of some of the improvements which he had to make under compulsion at the instance of the Dacca Municipality be taken into account he was entitled to get from the mortgagees a sum of Rs. 7133-5-4 for which he asked for a decree. This was his alternative prayer which was abandoned in the lower Court and has not been urged before us. 2. The learned Subordinate Judge dismissed the suit. He held that the suit was not maintainable in view of the fact that the mortgage-debt had been satisfied fully in October 1937, long before the Bengal Money-lenders Act had come into operation, and so no relationship of creditor and debtor was subsisting between the parties when the suit was instituted. Hence this appeal. A faint attempt was made before us by the appellant's advocate to show that there is no legal evidence to support the finding of the lower Court that the mortgage-debt has been fully satisfied in October 1937, but that point was not ultimately pressed. Hence this appeal. A faint attempt was made before us by the appellant's advocate to show that there is no legal evidence to support the finding of the lower Court that the mortgage-debt has been fully satisfied in October 1937, but that point was not ultimately pressed. There is also good evidence to support that finding. The questions of law, therefore, are: (1) Is the suit maintainable, seeing that the plaintiff was not a borrower at the date of the suit ? and (2) Assuming the suit to be maintainable can the said sale be re-opened? 3. Section 36 of the Act defines the powers of the Court and also lays down the procedure through which relief is to be obtained. The procedure can be summarised in the following manner: (1) "Where a suit for enforcement of the loan or a suit for redemption, as the case may be, is pending at the time when the Money-lenders Act came into force; in such a case the Act might and ought to be invoked by the borrower in that suit; (2) Where such a suit had ended in a final decree before the Act came into force: If the suit was pending on 1st January 1939 or if there were any proceedings pending on or instituted after that date which would bring the suit within the definition of "a suit to which the Act applies" the borrower is to seek relief either (a) through an application for review filed within the time mentioned in S. 36 (6) (a) (ii); or (b) by taking an objection in the execution proceedings, provided that execution is in the Court which had passed the decree. (45 C. W. N. 973 Mohini Ranjan Bhattacharjya Vs. Surendra Chandra Ghosal and Another, AIR 1942 Cal 149 Where no such suit had been instituted at all the borrower is entitled to seek relief either: (a) through an application under S. 38 of the Act, or (b) by an independent suit for relief provided for in para. 1 of S. 36 (1). 4. In cases falling under the second heading a suit for relief would seem to be the only means available to a borrower, where the time for filing review had passed and the execution has been taken by the lender in a transferee Court,-not the Court which had passed the decree. 5. 1 of S. 36 (1). 4. In cases falling under the second heading a suit for relief would seem to be the only means available to a borrower, where the time for filing review had passed and the execution has been taken by the lender in a transferee Court,-not the Court which had passed the decree. 5. The Legislature has put the different methods for obtaining relief as indicated above, so to say, in a lump. The doctrine of res judicata may have to be applied if the borrower fails to avail himself of the procedure indicated above in a case coming within the first head and the question of election of remedies may have to be invoked if he fails in his attempt to obtain relief by one method and then seeks relief by another, when more than one way is open to him according to the language of the statute. On these questions we express no opinion, as it is not necessary. In the case before us there is no possibility of a suit by the lender to enforce the loan for he was fully satisfied in 1937. If the sale cannot in law be re-opened by invoking the powers given in S. 36 of the Act, a suit for redemption is also out of question. The learned Subordinate Judge was of opinion that the suit was not maintainable as at the date of the suit there was no relationship of lender and borrower. The decision in 48 C. W. N. 596 Balai Chand Dev. Akshoy Kumar Seal ('44) 48 C.W.N. 596 is inconsistent with that view, though the actual point decided in that case was different. The word "borrower" in the phrase "suit brought by a borrower for relief" occurring in S. 36 (1) may be descriptive only, but in the view we are taking on the second question of law raised before us, it is not necessary to decide that point also. 6. One of the powers conferred on the Court by S. 36 is that it can reopen any "transaction" between the borrower and the lender, subject to the 'limitation contained in proviso (i) to S. 36 (1). A sale by the borrower to the lender in full or part satisfaction of the loan would ordinarily be covered by the word "transaction" occurring in cl. A sale by the borrower to the lender in full or part satisfaction of the loan would ordinarily be covered by the word "transaction" occurring in cl. (a) of S. 36 (1), but it would be otherwise if there are other indications of the Legislature's intention. 7. In the case where there has been a decree in respect of the loan the provisions of the statute is clear. The Court would not be entitled to invoke any of the powers conferred upon it by the Act for giving relief if the decree had been fully satisfied before 1st January 1939. The position, however, is not so clear where there was no suit in respect of the loan but it had been fully satisfied or paid up by the debtor before 1st January 1939. If the dues of the creditor be calculated in terms of the engagement which provided for interest at a rate in excess of that mentioned in S. 30 of the Act and that amount is paid up before 1st January 1939, the Court has no power under the Act to direct a refund by the lender to borrower of the excess amount that may be found on a calculation being made in terras of S. 30 of the Act. The Act gives a limited power to decree refund, and that power is confined to the case where interest is charged in the accounts or paid after 1st January 1939 at a rate exceeding that provided for in S. 30 or the amount so paid contravenes that section. Those are the only cases where the Court has power to direct payment or refund by the lender to the borrower. It would, therefore, follow that where the debt had been discharged by amicable payment before 1st January 1939 the Court would have no power in a suit by the borrower for relief filed after the Act had come into operation to direct a refund to the borrower of the amount which may be found to be in excess of what may be found out on calculating interest in terms of S. 30 of the Act, and, in our judgment, it makes no difference in principle where the loan had been fully satisfied prior to 1st January 1939 either by payment in cash or in kind or by accord and satisfaction. This, in our judgment, is the limitation which the Legislature had intended to put on the powers of the Court though the language of S. 36 (1), cl. (a) has been couched in very wide terms. We accordingly hold that the sale of 8th October 1937 cannot be reopened and so accounts cannot be taken on the footing that there is still a mortgage. The appeal accordingly fails. The result is that the appellant's suit is dismissed but, in the circumstances of the case, we direct the parties to bear their respective costs throughout.