Judgment :- 1. This is a petition to revise an order of the First Additional Munsiff, Neyyattinkara, rejecting an application under S.7 of the Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, 1958, to amend the decree in O. S. No. 330 of 1959 on his file. Objection was taken by the respondent that a decree cannot be amended except in conformity with the judgment in the case. The Munsiff held: "The decree must be in conformity with the judgment. The petitioner has applied for correction of the decree only. In the circumstances the petition is dismissed." Obviously, the Munsiff has mistaken the scope of S.7 of the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, 1958, hereinbelow referred to as the Act, which provides for amendments of decrees "notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908". The reasoning of the Munsiff is therefore incorrect; but, his disposal of the application seems warranted by other reasons. 2. The prayers in the application are only to record in the decree that the applicant, who is the first defendant therein, is an agriculturist, and that the decree debt is one that comes within the purview of the Act, and to amend the decree in accordance with the provisions of the Act. Counsel pointed out that the application is exactly in the Form prescribed by the Rules for an application under S.7 of the Act. But, it is elementary that forms given merely as models cannot be taken as guides to the meaning of a statute. "Schedule forms are always dangerous guides to the meaning of a statute, and this particular form (the form of warrant of imprisonment under S.488 given in Schedule V of the Criminal Procedure Code) is really no guide at all" observed Blagdon, J. in AIR. 1941. Rangoon 135 at 140. In Pandiri Sarveswara Rao v. Maturi Umamaheswara Rao (AIR. 1941 Mad. 152) their Lordships Wadsworth and Patanjali Sastri, JJ. observed: "This may well be a defect in the drafting of the form but we cannot admit the proposition that the meaning of the Act is to be derived from the forms which have been prescribed by the Government under its rule-making powers." Here, the Form gives only the frame, leaving the substance to be made up by the particular applicants.
The wording of the verification appended to the Form shows that many more paragraphs are expected in the application than are indicated in the Form. Obviously, those extra paragraphs are to supply the substance of the application, namely the particular amendments sought to be made in the decree and the facts that justify the same. Unless such details are supplied the application will not satisfy the requirements of S.7 of the Act, and if the application does not conform to the Section it has to fail. S. 7 of the Act runs thus: "(1) Where, before the commencement of this Act, a Court has passed a decree for repayment of a debt, it shall, on the application of any judgment-debtor who is an agriculturist or on the application of the decree-holder apply the provisions of this Act to such decree and shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, amend the decree accordingly or enter satisfaction, as the case may be. (2) The provisions of sub-S. (1) shall also apply to cases where, after the commencement of this Act, a Court has passed a decree for the repayment of any debt." The amendment of the decree contemplated herein is to express the changes it would assume when the provisions of the Act are applied to it. It is nowhere mentioned in the Act that an agriculturist debtor or a debt coming within the purview of the Act should be mentioned as such in the decree. To mention in a decree that the judgment-debtor is an agriculturist, or that the debt therein is within the purview of the Act, is not to "apply the provisions of the Act to such decree", and therefore not an amendment contemplated by S.7. The expression in the Section "shall ... amend the decree accordingly or enter satisfaction, as the case may be" clearly indicates that the amendment is an alternative to entering satisfaction of the decree; and that, in the light of the doctrine 'Noscitur a sociis' and in the context of the Act providing for large scale scaling down of the debt, must necessarily be one in reduction of the debt under the decree.
Thus, for example, S.5 says that interest on a debt due by an agriculturist shall not exceed 5% per annum from the date of commencement of the Act, except in the case of debts due to Banking Companies where the interest may rise to 7% per annum after the publication of the Act 2 of 1961. If a decree awards a larger interest than the above, an agriculturist debtor may apply to amend the decree under S.7 of the Act to make it in conformity with the Act. S.5 says further that more than a moiety of the principal shall not be deemed to have been payable as interest before the date of commencement of the Act and that if excess interest had been paid such excess, shall be credited towards the principal outstanding on the date of the Act, unless the creditor be a Banking Company in which case the arrears of interest remaining due on the date of the Act shall not exceed a moiety of the principal. If a decree awarded larger interest than mentioned above or failed to take note of all the interest paid to a creditor not being a Banking Company before the date of the Act, the decree can be amended to reduce the liability in accordance with the Act. S.9 of the Act allows a debtor to overlook S.92 of the Evidence Act and prove that a transaction of sale and lease back is a case of real borrowing, the creditor having undertaken to reconvey the property on repayment of the debt mentioned as price, or that the amount actually paid under a registered bond was only something less than the amount shown in the bond. If such pleas were not allowed at trial and the decree was passed in tune with the apparent recitals in the registered deeds, an agriculturist debtor can get it amended under S.7 of the Act. S.11 of the Act provides that a possessory mortgage and a lease-back shall be construed as a simple mortgage with interest payable at 5% per annum after the commencement of the Act. A decree for arrears of rent accrued after the date of the Act under a lease back following a possessory mortgage can be amended under S.7 as for interest at 5% per annum on the mortgage amount.
A decree for arrears of rent accrued after the date of the Act under a lease back following a possessory mortgage can be amended under S.7 as for interest at 5% per annum on the mortgage amount. Such and several other like amendments can possibly be made in decrees, particularly in those passed before the commencement of the Act, and possibly even in decrees passed thereafter overlooking the Act and S.7 of the Act stands for such amendments. But the application moved by the petitioner does not specify any amendment of the nature indicated above to be made in the decree. A prayer "to amend the decree in accordance with the provisions of the Kerala Agriculturists Debt Relief Act, 1958" is too vague to be acted upon by the Court. The particular amendments sought to be made in the decree should be specified in the application. That has not been done in this case. The dismissal of the application is therefore justified. The Civil Revision Petition fails and is dismissed. Needless to say, that the dismissal of the present application will not bar a proper application being moved hereafter in the case. Dismissed.