Isolated advance and interest claim do not trigger the money-lending bar under the Bombay Money Lenders Act.

A preliminary objection to a suit for recovery of interest or damages was assessed on the plaint averments alone. A single friendly advance by cheque, with repayment of principal and no material showing habitual lending or a money-lending business, was treated as insufficient to invoke the Bombay Money Lenders Act, 1946. An isolated advance does not, by itself, attract the statutory bar, and a claim for interest does not convert the suit into one based on illegal money lending. The revisional court found no illegality or material irregularity in rejecting the objection, so the suit was allowed to proceed on its merits.

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Issues: Whether the suit for recovery of interest or damages was barred by the Bombay Money Lenders Act, 1946 on the ground that the transaction amounted to unlicensed money lending.

Analysis: The objection had to be tested on the plaint averments at the threshold. The plaint disclosed a single friendly advance by cheque, return of the principal, and a claim only for interest or damages. There was no material to show a series of transactions, habitual lending, or carrying on of the business of money lending. A stray or isolated advance does not attract the statutory bar, and a claim for interest does not, by itself, render the suit one on an illegal money-lending transaction. The revisional court also found no illegality or material irregularity in the order rejecting the preliminary objection.

Conclusion: The suit was not barred by the Bombay Money Lenders Act, 1946, and the preliminary objection was rightly rejected. The revision failed.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to maintainability on the basis of unlicensed money lending was rejected, and the dismissal of the revision left the suit to proceed on its own merits.

Ratio Decidendi: An isolated or stray advance, without pleading or material showing a regular money-lending business, does not attract the statutory bar under the Bombay Money Lenders Act, 1946; at the stage of a preliminary objection, the plaint averments are decisive.

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