Deeming amendment and retrospective effect allowed debt relief and supported review where the applicable law was ignored.

A deeming amendment to the U. P. Zamindars' Debt Reduction Act was held to operate as if the omitted limiting words had never existed, so relief under section 4 remained available for a secured debt backed by mortgaged estate property. The statutory fiction had to be given full effect, and the judgment-debtors could invoke the amended provision. The Court also treated the challenge as competent in substance, because failure to apply the law deemed applicable on the material date was an error apparent on the face of the record; the High Court could therefore grant relief and restore the matter notwithstanding the label of the application.

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Issues: (i) Whether section 4 of the U. P. Zamindars' Debt Reduction Act, 1952, as amended by the U. P. Zamindars' Debt Reduction (Amendment) Act, 1962, could be invoked by the judgment-debtors in respect of the decree in question. (ii) Whether the High Court could entertain and allow the application styled as a review application after the amendment had come into force.

Issue (i): Whether section 4 of the U. P. Zamindars' Debt Reduction Act, 1952, as amended by the U. P. Zamindars' Debt Reduction (Amendment) Act, 1962, could be invoked by the judgment-debtors in respect of the decree in question.

Analysis: The amendment deleted the words limiting relief to mortgaged property charged under the decree and, by the deeming provision, operated as if it had been in force on all material dates. The statutory fiction had to be carried to its logical conclusion, so that the section could be applied on the footing that the omitted words were never there. The decree related to a secured debt and the mortgaged property consisted of estate acquired under the relevant abolition legislation.

Conclusion: The amended section 4 was applicable and the judgment-debtors were entitled to seek relief under it.

Issue (ii): Whether the High Court could entertain and allow the application styled as a review application after the amendment had come into force.

Analysis: A later change in the law was not the real basis; the amendment was treated as having always formed part of the statute from the date of commencement of the principal Act. Where the law applicable on the material date was not applied, that constituted an error apparent on the face of the record. The substance of the application, rather than its label, was decisive, and the special statute conferred power notwithstanding the Code of Civil Procedure.

Conclusion: The High Court was competent to grant the relief and to restore the matter in the manner it did.

Final Conclusion: The special statutory amendment had retrospective effect through a deeming fiction, and the High Court's grant of relief to the judgment-debtors was sustained.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute by deeming fiction provides that an amendment shall operate as if it had always been in force, the court must give full effect to that fiction and decide the matter on the basis of the law so deemed to exist, and an order refusing relief on the contrary basis may be corrected in review.

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