ORDER M.S. Menon, C.J. 1. The petitioner before us was the second defendant in O. S. No. 241 of 1120 of the Munsiff's Court of Haripad. The suit was for recovery of property with arrears of rent. It was decreed and the decree was transferred for execution to the Munsiff's Court of Chengannoor. 2. The property was sold on 4-7-1951 and the sale was confirmed on 3-8-1951. The first plaintiff was the auction purchaser. 3. Delivery of the property did not follow. And on 7-7-1959 the petitioner filed E. A. No. 5349 of 1959 under S.22 of the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, 1958 Act 31 of 1958 and prayed that the sale be set aside. 4. The relevant portion of S.22(1) provides that where any immovable property in which an agriculturist had an interest has been sold in execution of any decree before 1-11-1956 but the possession of the said property had not actually passed before 20-11-1957 from the judgment debtor to the purchaser, then, notwithstanding any thing in the Indian Limitation Act, 1908, or in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and notwithstanding that the sale has been confirmed such judgment debtor may "(a) in the case of a sale where the purchaser is the decree holder, deposit one half of the purchase money together with the costs of execution, where such costs where not included in the purchase money, and apply to the Court within six months of the commencement of this Act to set aside the sale of the property and the Court shall, if satisfied that the applicant is an agriculturist entitled to the benefits of this Act, order the sale to be set aside and the Court shall further order that the balance of the purchase money shall be paid in ten equal half yearly instalments together with the interest accrued due on such balance outstanding till the date of payment of each instalment at five per cent per annum, the first instalment being payable within a period of six months from the date of the order of the Court." Act 31 of 1958 came into force on 14-7-1958. E. A. No. 5349 of 1959 was not filed within six months thereof as provided in S.22 but only on 7-7-1959, and the Munsiff of Chengannoor dismissed the application on that ground. 5. E. A. No. 5349 of 1959 was not filed within six months thereof as provided in S.22 but only on 7-7-1959, and the Munsiff of Chengannoor dismissed the application on that ground. 5. An appeal to the Additional District Court of Mavelikara A. S. No. 240 of 1959 followed. The appeal shared the same fate and for the same reason. It was dismissed on 13-7-1960. 6. S.22 of Act 31 of 1958 was amended by Act 2 of 1961. The words 'one year' were substituted for the words 'six months' in sub-s.(1)(a) of that section. S.1(2) of the amending Act said that that Act "shall be deemed to have come into force on the 14th day of July, 1958." 7. After the passing of Act 2 of 1961, the petitioner filed an application, on 13-2-1961, before the Additional District Court of Mavelikara I. A. No. 364 of 1961 and prayed for a review of its decision in A. S. No. 240 of 1959. The Additional District Judge dismissed that application. He said: "I do not think that subsequent legislation can afford a valid ground for review. It appears to me that the ground for review mast have existed on the date of the order or judgment complained of" 8. The dismissal of the application under S.22 of Act 31 of 1958 E. A. No. 5349 of 1959 by the Munsiff of Chengannoor and the dismissal of the petitioner's appeal therefrom A. S. No. 240 of 1959 by the Additional District Judge of Mavelikara were the only orders that those officers could have passed on the dates on which those decisions were rendered. The sole question for determination is whether a subsequent amendment with retrospective effect from a date anterior to the dates of those orders will render those orders incorrect and afford a ground for review. 9. In In re K. Vasudevan ( AIR 1944 Mad. 238 ) the Madras High Court said: "It seems to us clear that the passing of the Amending Act, even though it changes the law with retrospective effect, is not a sufficient reason for reopening matters which have already been decided on the basis of the law as it stood before the amendment. 238 ) the Madras High Court said: "It seems to us clear that the passing of the Amending Act, even though it changes the law with retrospective effect, is not a sufficient reason for reopening matters which have already been decided on the basis of the law as it stood before the amendment. The petition to excuse delay and the petition for review are therefore, dismissed." Desai, C. J., dealt with this decision as follows in Mohammad Azamat Azim Khan v. Raja Shatrunji 1963 (61) All. LJ 601: "The opposite party referred us to In re K. Vasudevan (AIR 1944 Madras 238), which does not contain any discussion of the law at all. Moreover the application for review itself was barred by time and the court refused to extend the period of limitation under S.5. Once it refused to extend the period of limitation there arose no question whether the order passed previously was erroneous on the face of the record or not." 10. The case before the Allahabad High Court was very similar to the one before us. Desai, C. J., with whom Katju, J., agreed and Beg, J., did not, said: "I do not see any substance in the argument that if a judgment which was correct on the date on which it was pronounced could be reviewed because the law on which it was based was amended with retrospective effect, it would mean reopening of all judgments. As was pointed out by Sri Naziruddin, it would mean reopening of only those judgments which could be reopened either on an appeal or on a review application, for both of which there is a prescribed period of limitation. A judgment is liable to be reopened only if the period for filing an appeal from it or for applying for a review of it has not expired. So long as an appeal can be filed or an application for review can be filed it can be reopened in view of the amended law and the amended law can and must be given its retrospective effect." We are in agreement with this view. 11. So long as an appeal can be filed or an application for review can be filed it can be reopened in view of the amended law and the amended law can and must be given its retrospective effect." We are in agreement with this view. 11. S.5 of the Indian Limitation Act, 1908, says: "Any appeal or application for a review of judgment or for leave to appeal or any other application to which this section may be made applicable by or under any enactment for the time being in force may be admitted after the period of limitation prescribed therefor, when the appellant or applicant satisfies the Court that he had sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal or making the application within such period." An application under this section, we are assured, was filed before the Additional District Court of Mavelikara, and that it has been allowed. The correctness of that order is not challenged before us. 12. A Division Bench of this Court Radhakrishna Punchithaya v. Sanjeeva Rao ( 1963 KLT 656 ) quoted and followed the following passage from Broom's Legal Maxims: "Since equity is the life of legal fiction, where substantial justice does not require its interference, still more where it would suffer from its operation, fiction has no place" (10th Edn., page 80) in the case of a fiction enacted by a statute. The maxim in fictione juris semper aequitas existit (equity is the life of a legal fiction) has no application to fictions that stem from statutes. It is confined to the legal fictions Invented by the lawyer and defined by Bentham as "a wilful falsehood having for its object the stealing of legislative power, by and for hands which could not or durst not openly claim it, and, but for the delusion thus produced, could not exercise it." 13. The reason is not far to seek. Those fictions of law "were created to enable the court to do justice, and where to indulge a fiction is to cause injustice, its just limit has been found." 14. As far as the effect of statutory fictions are concerned the proper approach is the approach of Lord Asquith in East End Dwellings Co. Those fictions of law "were created to enable the court to do justice, and where to indulge a fiction is to cause injustice, its just limit has been found." 14. As far as the effect of statutory fictions are concerned the proper approach is the approach of Lord Asquith in East End Dwellings Co. Ltd. v. Finsbury Borough Council (1952 AC 109): "If you are bidden to treat an imaginary state of affairs as real, you must surely, unless prohibited from doing so, also imagine as real the consequences and incidents which, if the putative state of affairs had in fact existed, must inevitably have flowed from or accompanied it .... The statute says that you must imagine a certain state of affairs; it does not say that having done so, you must cause or permit your imagination to boggle when it comes to the inevitable corollaries of that state of affairs." The Supreme Court has quoted this passage with approval in M. K. Venkatachalam v. Bombay Dyeing and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (AIR 1958 Supreme Court 875) and Commissioner of Income Tax, Delhi v. S. Teja Singh ( AIR 1959 SC 352 ). 15. Maxwell deals with statutes contrary to natural equity or reason as follows: "The law on this subject cannot be better laid down than in the following words of a great American authority: 'It is a principle in the English Law, that an Act of Parliament, delivered in clear and intelligible terms, cannot be questioned, or its authority controlled, in any court of justice'." (Interpretation of Statutes, 11th Edition, page 251). In Nagendra Nath v. Suresh Chandra Dey (AIR 1932 Privy Council 165) Sir Dinshah Mulla said: "The fixation of periods of limitation must always be to some extent arbitrary, and may frequently result in hardship. But in construing such provisions equitable considerations are out of place, and the strict grammatical meaning of the words is, their Lordships think, the only safe guide," And in Emperor v. Benoari Lal (AIR 1945 Privy Council 48) Viscount Simon said: "Again and again, this Board has insisted that in construing enacted words we are not concerned with the policy involved or with the results, injurious or otherwise, which may follow from giving effect to the language used." 16. In the light of what is stated above we must give full credit to the retrospective effect granted by Act 2 of 1961, hold that E. A. No. 5349 of 1959 was filed within time and that as the delay in filing I. A. No. 364 of 1961 has been condoned this Revision Petition should succeed. Order accordingly; but in the circumstances of the case without any direction as to costs. Allowed.