Judgment :- 1. The 6th plaintiff is the appellant and the matter arises in execution. The suit having been dismissed with costs by the Court below, the defendants took out execution for the costs decreed to them, when the plaintiff applied for relief under the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, Act XXXI of 1958. The Subordinate Judge held: "Out of the costs decreed a sum of Rs. 355/-is advocate's fee and that has to be decreed to be remuneration for services rendered by the advocate and hence exempted from the operation of the Act under S.2(c)(v). I therefore find that to the extent of Rs. 355/-the debt is not within the purview of the Act and only in respect of the balance instalment payment is allowed." This appeal is against the exclusion of Rs. 355 out of the purview of the Debt Relief Act. 2. S.2 (c) (v) of the Agriculturists Debt Relief Act reads: 2 (c) "'Debt' means any liability in cash or kind ....but does not include .... (v) any liability in respect of wages or remuneration due as salary or otherwise for services rendered." The debt is obviously what subsists between the parties, the debtor and bis creditor. The expressions 'liability' and 'services rendered' must therefore be between the parties themselves. It then follows that to earn the exception in the above clause, the debt must represent the remuneration for services rendered by the creditor to the debtor. Costs of a defeated suit cannot by any stretch of imagination be brought within that category. The defendants cannot be deemed to have done any service to the plaintiff in opposing his suit. What they have done is disservice and the 'costs' ordered to be paid is not wages or remuneration but compensation for the expenses they were put to by the plaintiff's wanton suit. Strictly speaking it is of the nature of damages for injury done, not remuneration for services rendered. Algebraic propositions may apply to, positive and negative numbers alike, but in law words of positive sense are never taken to include their antonyms also. The fact that the defendants engaged counsel and paid remuneration to him and such expenses formed part of their loss for which the plaintiff was directed to compensate them by the order for costs is irrelevant in adjudging the relation of the plaintiff and the defendants in the cause. The fact that the defendants engaged counsel and paid remuneration to him and such expenses formed part of their loss for which the plaintiff was directed to compensate them by the order for costs is irrelevant in adjudging the relation of the plaintiff and the defendants in the cause. That the plaintiff is an agriculturist entitled to the benefits of the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, XXXI of 1958, in the discharge of his indebtedness has been found by the Court below and relief has been allowed to him in regard to the remaining portion of the costs sought to be recovered from him, and that finding is not challenged by the defendants. In the circumstances that finding must govern the entire claim, there being no ground for exception of any portion thereof. The appeal succeeds with costs and the plaintiff is held entitled to the benefits of the Act, XXXI of 1958 in discharging his liability for costs decreed in the case.