Judgment :- 1. The petitioner is the judgment-debtor in a decree for recovery of a debt. When execution was taken for realisation of the amount under the decree, the petitioner claimed benefit under Act 17 of 1977. The Munsiff, Kozhikode-II overruled the objection and allowed execution holding that the debt excluding interest being more than Rs. 3000/-, the petitioner is not entitled to the benefit of the Act. The above order is challenged in this revision petition. 2. The decree is for Rs. 3,468-55, interest on the principal amount Rs. 2,680/- from 6-11-73 at 6 per cent and costs amounting to Rs. 519-25 p. The petitioner paid Rs. 700/- on 28-12-73- This sum was adjusted towards the consolidated amount consisting of Rs. 3468-55 P. and interest on Rs. 2680/-due on that date The execution petition is for the balance amount and costs. The argument put forward on behalf of the petitioner is that for the purposes of the Act, the above payment of Rs. 700/- should be credited towards the principal amount of Rs. 2680/- and not towards the consolidated amount. If that is done, the debt excluding interest was less than Rs. 3000/- on the date of commencement of the Act-costs decreed being taken as part of the debt He, therefore, claims that he is entitled to have the debt declared as discharged. 3. S.2 (6) defines interest: "Interest" means any amount or other thing paid or payable in excess of the principal amount borrowed or pecuniary obligation incurred or, where anything has been borrowed in kind, in excess of what has been so borrowed, by whatsoever name such amount or thing may be called, and whether the same is paid or payable entirely in cash or entirely in kind or partly in cash and partly in kind and whether the same is expressly mentioned or not in the document or contract, if any." 4. It is urged on behalf of the petitioner that the use of the expression "paid or payable in excess of the principal amount borrowed" would indicate that the interest already paid should be adjusted towards the principal amount of the debt for the purpose of finding out whether a person is a debtor under the definition. It is urged on behalf of the petitioner that the use of the expression "paid or payable in excess of the principal amount borrowed" would indicate that the interest already paid should be adjusted towards the principal amount of the debt for the purpose of finding out whether a person is a debtor under the definition. Apparently, there is some force in the contention; but the matter is not free from difficulty in view of the fact that the Act does not provide for reopening appropriations already made. 5. A debt as defined in S 2(3) takes in any liability in cash or kind, whether payable under a contract, or under a decree or order of Court, excepting those included in the definition. Interest payable under a contract is a liability and is, therefore, a debt. Interest is to be excluded only for the purpose of deciding whether a parson is a debtor under S 2 (4). Cost being a liability, forming a part of the decree is also a debt. A debtor as defined under S.2(4) does not include a person from whom a debt exceeding Rs. 3000/-excluding interest is due. The word "excluding" is antithetical to the word "including" and would indicate that though ordinarily the word 'debt' includes interest, it should be taken as not including interest for the purpose of S.2(4). If the definition of interest in S 2(6) is transported into S 2(4), the result would be, for deciding the question of quantum of the debt due any sum paid or payable in excess of the principal amount borrowed should be left out. At the same time, it is not mentioned anywhere in the Statute that a sum already paid as interest or a consolidated payment made prior to the commencement of the Act should go in reduction of the principal amount due to the credior. In other words, there is no provision in S 2(4) for re-opening payments already made and readjustment of amounts paid, towards the principal amount, for the purpose of finding out whether the debt (excluding interest) exceeds three thousand rupees It would appear that the word 'interest' is used in S.2(4) in the ordinary sense and only the sums outstanding as interest on the date of commencement of the Act need be taken in to account in deciding whether the debt exceeds three thousand rupees. Such an inference is legitimate because the definition of 'debtor' precedes the definition of interest. The following passage from Statutory Interpretation by Rupert Cross (1976) page 100 also supports the above position: "There is a presumption that the same word or phrase bears the same meaning throughout the same statute. In Goward v. Motor Insurers' Bureau (19631 Q B. 259) for example, the words "for hire or reward" in S.36 (1) (b)(ii) of the Road Traffic Act 1930 were held to require a legally enforceable agreement and so to exclude a case in which payments were made by a pillion passenger in the absence of such an agreement to a motor cyclist who gave him lifts to and from work. The phrase "for hire or reward" was used elsewhere in the Act in a context which clearly referred to a legally enforceable agreement and prima facie it should bear the same meaning throughout the statute. The presumption is, however, of the mildest kind for it is easy to point to cases in which the same word has been held to have different meanings in different sections, or even the same section, of a single statute. A stock example of the first type of case is provided by the different meanings of the word "premises" in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. Sometimes it is used in its popular sense of buildings while at other points in the statute it bears the technical meaning of that which may form the subject matter of the habendum of a lease with the result that land with or without buildings on it may be included. (Bracey v. Read. (1963 Ch 88). The stock example of the use of the same verb in different senses in the same section is S.57 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1881 which provides that: "whosoever, being married, shall marry any other person during the life of the former husband or wife" shall be guilty of bigamy. Although "being married" means being validly married, "shall marry" necessarily means no more than "go to rough a marriage ceremony". (R v. Alien (1872) L. R. I C.C.R. 367). 6. Although "being married" means being validly married, "shall marry" necessarily means no more than "go to rough a marriage ceremony". (R v. Alien (1872) L. R. I C.C.R. 367). 6. I am, therefore, unable to accept the interpretation canvassed by the petitioner on the definition of the debtor, that all payments though made towards interest and appropriated towards interest according to the law in force at the time of such appropriation should go in redaction of the principal. In my view, a person is eligible to relief as a debtor only if the debt as it stood on the date of commencement of the Act excluding the portion which represented interest did not exceed Rs. 3000/-The revision petition, therefore, fails and is dismissed. Dismissed.