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Judgment
Wadsworth, J.—The petitioners pray for the revision of an order of review. There is no doubt about the facts. The question before the
lower Court was whether the respondents were entitled to relief under Madras Act 4 of 1938 in respect of certain mortgage debts. The decision of
that question depended upon the further question whether the mortgage debts were advanced on security of house property situated within a
panchayat which was a union before 26th August 1930 u/s 4(d) of the Act. The advocate for the debtors wrote a letter to the Inspector of Local
Boards which is not before me, to which the reply was that the ""Brahmana Periya Agraharam Panchayat Board was constituted in this office R.
Dis. No. 925 of 1929 dated 19th December 1929."" Acting on this letter the debtors came to the conclusion that they were not entitled to relief
under the Act and they therefore agreed to a compromise fixing the amounts which they had to pay. Independently of the letter sent by the
debtor''s advocate there was an enquiry made by the Court regarding the date on which this Agraharam was made into a union and this elicited the
reply that the Agraharam was not a union before 26th August 1930. One can only conjecture that the letter sent by the debtors'' advocate must
have asked when the panchayat was founded and the panchayat presumably was founded before it was made into a union as frequently happens.
Now, on the debtors discovering that they had consented to this compromise under a misapprehension regarding the date of the foundation of the
union, they applied to the lower Court for review. The learned District Munsif has found that this is a case of discovery of a new and important
matter coming under Order 47, Rule 1(1), Civil P.C., or alternatively that the decision may be reviewed for ""any other sufficient reason.
My attention has been drawn to the decision in Alamelu Ammal v. Rama Iyer AIR l922 Mad. 446 where a Bench of this Court decided that the
fact that a party was made to sign a compromise by a misrepresentation as to the character of the document on which the signature was obtained is
a sufficient ground for review. In Govinda Chettiar v. Varadappa Chettiar AIR 1940 Mad. 17, Patanjali Sastri J., held that, when it was shown
that counsel failed to argue a case completely owing to a misapprehension with the result that the judgment was pronounced without his client''s
case being fully presented before the Court, it was sufficient cause for interference in review. Both these are eases in which an error has been made
which has affected the Court''s decision. In the first case, the Court would never have passed a decree in terms of the compromise if it had known
that one of the parties had not consented to the compromise. In the second ease, the Court would never have pronounced judgment if it had
known that the advocate had not concluded his argument. The present case is one in which admittedly both parties consented to the compromise.
One of them gave his consent owing to a mistake which probably could have been avoided with a little more care, but the mistake was one
affecting the judgment of the party. There was no mistake affecting the decision of the Court. It seems to me that if we look upon this compromise
as a mere contract, it could not be set aside merely because one of the parties had given his consent owing to an error of fact to some extent of his
own making; and it seems to me that the Court has no jurisdiction in review to set aside a decree passed on a compromise which compromise
would, by the ordinary law of contracts be binding on the party. I have been referred to a decision in Lalji Sahu v. Collector of Tirhoot (1971) 6
Beng. L.R. 648 which is, however, one resting on very special facts wherein the Court''s order contemplated a right of review to the party wishing
to have the compromise modified. I am of opinion that the learned District Munsif has exceeded the jurisdiction conferred upon him under Order
47, Rule 1(1),Civil P.C., and I set aside the order of review and restore the decree as it stood before review. The petitioners will be entitled to
their costs against respondent 1 in this Court.