BHARGAVA, J. - (1.) THESE two appeals against the orders dated 21st October, 1961 and 24th November 1961, arise out of the same execution proceedings which by the first order were stayed and by the second ordered to have abated by the Senior Civil Judge, Jalore under sec. 5 (l) (i) and sec. 6 (6) (ii) of the Rajasthan Relief of Agricultural Indebtedness Act, 1957 (hereinafter called the Act ). The second order regarding abatement of execution proceedings had to be passed because the amendment brought about in sec. 5 of the Act was not brought to the notice of the court when order of stay was passed on 21-10 1961.
(2.) THE appellants who had obtained a decree for sale of the mortgaged property of the respondents including Nathudan applied for its execution and notice was issued to the judgment debtors under O. 21 r. 66 of the Code of Civil Procedure and in response to it, Nathudan judgment debtor submitted an application that he had already made an application in the Debt Relief Court in accordance with sec. 6 of the Act in which, the amount of the decree under execution, has been entered in the schedule of debts, and, therefore, the execution proceedings may be stayed. THE learned Senior Civil Judge after hearing the parties ordered the stay of the execution proceeding and later on passed the order of abatement. It is not in dispute that the judgment debtor's application under sec. 6 of the Act had been admitted by the debt relief court the decretal debt had also been entered in the schedule of debts. Learned counsel for the appellants has contended in this court that secs. 5 and 6 (6) (ii) of the Act have no application to execution proceedings and the Senior Civil Judge was, therefore, in error in passing the order of abatement of those proceedings. It is pointed out that sec. 5 speaks of "suit or an insolvency petition" and does not include execution proceedings. It is further pointed out that sec. 21 of the Act also does not bar the jurisdiction of civil courts in executing decrees for recovery of any debt unless the recovery of such debt is included in any scheme under sub-sec. (1) of sec. 11 as provided in sec. 21 (l) (c) of the Act. Learned counsel for the appellants contends that execution proceeding is not a 'suit' within the meaning of sec. 5 of the Act. In this connection he has invited my attention to the commentary under sec. 141 of the Code to show that even sec. 141 does not apply to execution proceedings. It is contended that if the legislature intended to include execution proceedings also under sec. 5, it could have very easily said so by mentioning the same therein. The point for decision therefore, is whether the word 'suit' occurring in sec. 5 of the Act only denotes the stage of the litigation beginning with the filing of the plaint and ending with the decree or also includes the proceedings for the recovery of the debt in execution of the decree. It has been held in some cases that though execution is not a suit, but the execution proceedings are a continuation of the suit, while in others a contrary view has been taken and it has been held that the word 'suit' denotes the stage of the litigation in the court of the first instance, beginning with the filing of the plaint and ending with the decree or final order passed by such court. In (Bhai) Kirpa Singh vs. Rasalldar Ajaipal Singh (l) the Full Bench of the Lahore High Court after considering the aforesaid conflicting views remarked that : "an examination of these and other oases leads to the conclusion that 'suit 'proceeding' and words of similar connotation have different meaning in different statutes and that it is not possible to lay down a general rule of interpretation which would be applicable to all cases. In each particular case the question has to be examined in reference to the context and that meaning is to be preferred which will best fit in with it". Their Lordships in the above case were considering the provisions of secs. 32 and 39 of the Sikh Gurudwaras Act (Punjab Act 8/1925) and construed the words 'suit' and 'proceedings' as signifying the words 'suit' or 'proceeding' ejusdem generis, but not as to include appeals. The above observations were followed by the Bombay High Court in Vinayak Pandurangrao Desai vs. Sheshadasharya Ramcharya Jahagirdar (2 ). Therefore it has to be seen in the light of the above remarks whether the word 'suit' in S. 5 of the Act includes execution proceedings also. The Act, as its preamble speaks was enacted to provide for the relief of agriculturists in the State of Rajasthan from indebtedness. 'debt' has been defined in S. 2 (c) and includes all liabilities owing to a creditor, in cash or kind secured or unsecured payable under a decree of a civil court or otherwise. S. 6 contains a provision for making an application by the debtor who is liable for debts individually or jointly with another person before the debt relief Court for determination of his debts which means that an application or determi-nation of debts can also be made having regard to the definition of debt for decretal debts also Under sec. 10 the debt relief court is authorised to scale down the debt notwithstanding anything contained in any enactment for the time being in force or in any agreement between the parties or the persons through whom they claim, as to allowing compound interest or treating without an account the profits of mortgaged property to be interest on the mortgage money or specifying the mode of otherwise setting accounts and notwithstanding any written statement or settle-ment or accounts or any agreement purporting to close previous dealings and create a new obligation. After the amount due has been determined under sec. 10, the debt relief court is authorised under sec. 11 to prepare a scheme for the payment of the debtor's debt and to fix instalments, can draw up a final decree under its seal and signature which shall be deemed to be a decree of the lowest civil court, sec. 21 of the Act bars the jurisdiction of the civil courts and insolvency courts in respect of: (a) any matter pending before a debt Relief Court. (b) the claim for any debt which has been discharged or deemed to have been discharged under sec. 8. (c) the recovery of any debt, recovery of which is included in any scheme under sub-sec. (1) of sec. 11 for the time being in force and any order of a Debt Relief Court under snb-secs. (2) and (3) of that section or under sec, 20; and (d) any order of a Collector under sec. 13. The above noted provisions unmistakably show that the Debt Relief Court is authorised to determine and prepare scheme and pass a decree in respect of the decretal debts also because of the inclusion of such debts in the term 'debt' as defined in sec. 2 (c) This was also the view taken by a Division Bench of this Court in Karan-see vs. Sonsingh (3) and the contention that the decretal debts are outside the scope of sec. 6 (1) and 10 of the Act, was rejected and it was held that : "the term 'debt' referred to in sec, 6 (1) is comprehensive enough to include decretal debts also. " Similar view was taken in Karansee vs. Basti Chand (4) and it was held "the execu-tion proceedings were rightly stayed under Sec. 6 (3) of the Act. "the Full benech has recently concurred with the view expressed in Karansee vs. Sonsingh (3) (See Gullaram vs. Govindram (5) ). Learned counsel however, relied upon the non obstante clause in sec. 10 and contends that decretal debts have not been included in the said clause and as such the Debt Relief Court is not authorised to determine such debts. No doubt the non obstante clause only speaks of enactments and agreements of parties, their written statements, statements, of accounts or agreement purporting to close previous dealings and does not expressly speak of decretal debts, but it, cannot be regarded as exhaustive so as to exclude the decretal debts from the purview of debt relief court for the purpose of its determination. It is also well settled that non obstante clause cannot cut down the construction and restrict the scope of the operation of the enactment. The non obstante clause has to be read as clarifying the whole position and must be understood to have been incorporated in the enactment by the legislature by way of abudant caution and not by way of limiting the ambit and scope of the operative part of the enactment. See the Dominion of India vs. Shrinbai A. Irani (6) and R. Kanwar Raj Nath vs. Pramod C. Bhatt Custodian of Evacuee Property (7 ). I am of the view that even though the non obstante clause does not mention the decretal debts, the debt relief court is not precluded from its determina-tion on an application made under sec. 6 (1) of the Act because of the unambiguous definition of the term 'debt'. There is also no doubt that the decretal debts can be included in the scheme prepared by the debt relief court and that being so the jurisdiction of the civil court for recovering the decretal debts in execution of decrees is barred by virtue of sec. 21 of the Act. Having regard to the provisions of the Act mentioned above and the jurisdiction of the Debt Relief Court to deter-mine the decretal debts and preparing a scheme and a decree, I am inclined to hold that though the execution proceeding which are not instituted by the presentation of a plaint is not a 'suit', yet the word 'suit' occurring in sec. 5 of the Act is compre-hensive and includes execution proceedings and such proceedings are liable to abatement according to the law as it stands at present if notice of the admission of an application by a debtor under sec. 6 (1) is received by the executing court. In the present case the executing court did receive notice of the admission of the judgment debtor's application, and was, therefore, right in ordering abatement of the execu-tion proceedings. These appeals have therefore, no force and are hereby dismissed. But in the circumstances of the case I make no order as to costs. . ;