Mack, J.-The appellant is a surety who furnished security in substantial immoveable property to enable the plaintiff-decree holder in O.S.No.226 of 1946 to withdraw a substantial sum of money said to be over Rupees One lakh decreed to him, pending an appeal filed by the defendants. The appeal was allowed and the suit dismissed. The defendants then filed E.P.No.110 of 1953 for restitution by enforcing the security bond against the appellant. Her application under Act V of 1954 for stay of execution was dismissed by the learned Subordinate Judge who took the view that the Act had no application to recovery of money In restitution proceedings. The case is governed by sections 3 and 4 of Act V of 1954 which, we agree with Mr. Rajah Ayyar for the respondents, must be read together. According to section 3, “no suit for the recovery of a debt shall be instituted, no application for the execution of a decree for payment of money passed in a suit for the recovery of a debt shall be made......against any agriculturist in any civil or revenue Court before the expiry of a year from the date of commencement of this Act”. Then under section 4, “all further proceedings in suits and applications of the nature mentioned in section 3 in which relief is claimed against an agriculturist......but otherwise inclusive of proceedings consequent on orders or decrees made in appeals, etc., shall also stand stayed until the expiry of a year from the date of commencement of this Act.” Mr.Rajah Ayyar urges that section 4 is governed by section 3 and that it is only to cases in which the defendant is an agriculturist that section 4 applies. On a careful reading of the two sections together, we are unable to accept this contention. Section 4 is wide enough to include applications of the nature mentioned in section 3 in which relief is claimed against an agriculturist. That is, it contemplates a relief claimed against an agriculturist who may not be a party to the suit itself. The words “of the nature mentioned in section 3”, in our view, merely mean that the recovery sought to be made shall be of a debt, whether in a suit or an application in execution for its recovery against an agriculturist. The words “of the nature mentioned in section 3”, in our view, merely mean that the recovery sought to be made shall be of a debt, whether in a suit or an application in execution for its recovery against an agriculturist. The word ‘debt’ is defined in section 2(b) of the Act as any sum of money which a person is liable to pay under a contract (express or implied) for consideration received. The view that we take would also be in consonance with the preamble of the Act which is intended to bring relief to agriculturists as a class who have borrowed or added to their debts during the years of drought and who should in the interests of the general public be spared the distractions and expenditure involved in litigation launched by their creditors. It is obvious that the appellant is an agriculturist from the fact that her husband has given substantial agricultural land by way of security. We think that she clearly comes within the protection of sections 3 and 4 of Act V of 1954 read together and that as an agriculturist, she is entitled to have execution stayed against her, for the period contemplated by the Act. The appeal is allowed with costs, and execution against the appellant stayed. R.M. ----- Appeal allowed.