JUDGMENT Braund, J. - These are Execution First Appeals referred to us as a Full Bench. The facts are simple and we do not propose to set them out further than is strictly necessary. So far as First Appeal No. 528 of 1943 is concerned, they are that on 11-1-1941a date which, it has to be observed, was subsequent to the coming into force of the U.P. Debt Redemption Acta suit was started by a certain M. Ulfat Rai, who is the present opposite party decree-holder, against Janki Saran and his brother Ram Saran. Ulfat Rai's suit was for the usual mortgagee's relief on a simple mortgage. 2. When this suit was begun, Janki Saran had three children, Rajendra Singh, Narendra Singh and Birendra Singh, and it is common ground that he and the three children constituted a joint Hindu family. Within two months of the suit, however, Janki Saran died on 18-2-1941, and thereupon his three sons were substituted as defendants instead of their father. 3. On 10-9-1941 the usual preliminary decree for sale was passed in the suit against the sons of Janki Saran, who then, of course, were defendants in place of their father and Ram Saran. The widow of the uncle of Janki Saran was also a party to the suit, but that is an immaterial circumstance for our present purpose. Ultimately on 5th September 1942 a final decree was passed. Thereafter Ram Saran died, himself leaving three children surviving him who ultimately became parties to the proceedings. 4. This was the position when late in 1942 the decree-holder, M. Ulfat Rai, resorted to execution proceedings against the children of the two brothers for the purpose of getting the property sold in execution of his final decree of 5th September 1942. At that stage the objection was taken by the children or some of them which has now become the subject of the issue before us. 5. To put the matter as shortly as we possibly can, these children claimed the benefit of S. 17, U.P. Debt Redemption Act. At that stage the objection was taken by the children or some of them which has now become the subject of the issue before us. 5. To put the matter as shortly as we possibly can, these children claimed the benefit of S. 17, U.P. Debt Redemption Act. That section, which is described as a section to secure the protection of certain land from sale or transfer, provides that the land of an agriculturist who pays a local rate of twenty-five rupees or less is to be immune from sale in execution of a decree to which the Act applies and that such land is also to be immune from a final decree for foreclosure. The actual section, so far as material, runs thus: 17. (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in S. 16 or in any other law for the time being in force (a) the land of an agriculturist, the local rate payable by whom or recoverable from whom does not exceed twenty-five rupees per annum, shall not be sold or otherwise transferred in execution of a decree to which this Act applies, not shall a final decree for foreclosure be passed in respect of such land, and (b) in the case of any other agriculturist (i) only so much of this land may be sold or otherwise transferred in execution of a decree to which this Act applies, or (ii) a final decree for foreclosure may be passed in respect of only so much of his land, as would, after such sale or transfer or foreclosure leave with him and the local rate payable in respect of which would be at least rupees twenty-five per annum .... 6. The question, therefore, is whether, far the purpose of S. 17 of the Act, the land for which immunity from sale is sought is, in order to ascertain whether the local rate does or does not exceed twenty-five rupees per annum, to be regarded as the whole of the land which belonged to the father, Janki Saran, at the date when the suit was started, or the land as, in consequence of his death, it had come to be sub-divided in interest among his children. It really amounts to a question of the construction of the five words "the land of an agriculturist." If the agriculturist there referred to means the agriculturist who was the agriculturist at the date when the suit was started, then, of course, it is the whole aggregate of the land held by him that must be taken into account. If, on the other hand, it means the land of those persons who had come to hold it at the date of the decree, or alternatively at the date when the execution proceedings were begun, then, in a case in which the land had come by then to be sub-divided in interest the qualification applying a rate of twenty-five rupees per annum might well be argued to apply to each of the distributive portions, shares or interests in which the land was then held. Indeed that is the argument which has been advanced in this case and accepted by the learned Civil Judge of Farrukhabad. He appears to have held that in this case each of the sons of Janki Saran was an agriculturist within the meaning of the expression contained in S. 17 and that the distributive portion, share or interest of each son was, for the purposes of the section to be taken as "the land of an agriculturist" to which the twenty-five rupees per annum test had to be applied. Putting that in another way, he held first that the land was not to be regarded in the aggregate as land of the joint Hindu family but as the land of the various members of the family; and, secondly, that the proper date at which the test of S. 17 had to be applied was at any rate not the date of the suit but some date subsequent to that. 7. In the view we take this question is no longer open to argument before us by reason of the decision of our own Pull Bench in the case of Shatrughan Singh and Others Vs. Kedar Nath minor through Mt. Lakshmi Kuer, AIR 1944 All 126 That too was a case in which a decree-holder had started a suit and obtained a decree against a defendant. But in that case, after the date of the decree, the defendant had died and his sons had taken his place as judgment-debtors. Kedar Nath minor through Mt. Lakshmi Kuer, AIR 1944 All 126 That too was a case in which a decree-holder had started a suit and obtained a decree against a defendant. But in that case, after the date of the decree, the defendant had died and his sons had taken his place as judgment-debtors. This case, therefore, raised precisely the same point as the case before us, except for the variation that in the case before us, the original defendant-agriculturist, Janki Saran, died between the date on which the suit was started and the date on which the decree was obtained, whereas in the case before the previous Full Bench the defendant died between the date on which the decree was obtained and that on which the execution proceedings were started. The learned Judges composing the previous Full Bench, however, treated the question as one of the general construction of S. 17 of the Act and the ratio decidendi of their judgment is, we think, as applicable to the facts before us as it was to the facts before them. The learned Judges make that clear at p. 290 of their judgment in which they say: . . . . The question then arises whether the Legisla-ture in using the words 'an agriculturist' in S. 17 had in contemplation (1) the agriculturist incurring the loan; or (2) the agriculturist against whom a decree with respect to a loan was passed; or (3) the agriculturist who, by transfer, succession, or otherwise, may have succeeded to the land of the original debtor and against whom the decree is sought to be executed. 8. The learned Chief Justice in his judgment in the previous Full Bench, with which the other learned Judges were in agreement, said: For the reasons given above I hold that, for the purpose of determining the land that is protected from sale under S. 17, the local rate payable by the agriculturist against whom the decree was passed is to be taken into account and not the local rate that may be payable by his legal representatives, or transferees ... 9. It follows, therefore, that out of the three alternatives before that Full Benchnamely the date of the original suit, the date of the decree or the date of the execution proceedingsthe learned Judges deliberately chose the date of the decree in preference to the date of the suit. 9. It follows, therefore, that out of the three alternatives before that Full Benchnamely the date of the original suit, the date of the decree or the date of the execution proceedingsthe learned Judges deliberately chose the date of the decree in preference to the date of the suit. It is true that at one point it was said they refrained from expressing an opinion as to whether the words of S. 17 might refer to the original debtor. But, in the view we take, the Act cannot be construed variously to suit various cases. Only one construction is possible and that construction must be uniform for all cases. We think, therefore, that no room remains for expressing any further opinion as to whether the words "an agriculturist" might refer to the original debtor when once it has been determined, (as it has been determined in the previous Full Bench) that the agriculturist against whom the decree is passed is to be taken as the agriculturist referred to in S. 17. 10. In the case before us it is common ground that the sons against 'whom the decree was passed were themselves individually agriculturists. However entertaining it might be to reopen this question and now to consider whether the point of time at which the test should be applied should not be taken even further back to the date when the suit was started, or to the date when the original loan was incurred, it would, we think, only be adding confusion to the settled law if we were now to allow that question to be canvassed afresh. We are, moreover, bound by the previous Full Bench ruling of our own Court, whether or not we think that fresh argument might throw new light upon the matter. The previous Full Bench decision has clearly chosen the date of the decree as the relevant date and we see no reason, therefore, why that decision should not be applied in this case. [11] For these reasons we shall hold that the objector, being one of the sons of Janki Saran, was entitled to the protection of S. 17, U.P. Debt Redemption Act, in respect of his individual holding in the land and, accordingly that this appeal must be dismissed with costs. [11] For these reasons we shall hold that the objector, being one of the sons of Janki Saran, was entitled to the protection of S. 17, U.P. Debt Redemption Act, in respect of his individual holding in the land and, accordingly that this appeal must be dismissed with costs. Precisely the same reasoning applies to the other appeal No. 86 of 1944 before us and that too will be dismissed with costs. Iqbal Ahmad C.J. 12. I agree. Pathak J. 13. I also agree.