The Orissa Debt Relief Act, 1980 Complete Act - Bare Act

[Received the assent of the President on the 25tn February 1981, first published in an extraordinary issue of the Orissa Gazette, dated the 13th March 1981]

An Act to Provide for Relief from Indebtedness to the Small Farmers, Rural Artisans and agricultural labourers.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Orissa in the Thirty-First Year of the Republic of India, as follows:"

(1) This Act may be called the Orissa Debt Relief Act, 1980

(2) It extends to the whole of the State of Orissa.

(3) It shall come into force atonce.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires"

( ) "agricultural labourer" means a person who follows any one or more of the following agricultural operations in the capacity of a labourer on hire or exchange, whether paid in cash or in kind of partly in cash and partly in kind and who does not hole more than one standard acre of land and whose annual income does not exceed two thousand

and four hundred rupees:"

(i) fanning including cultivation and tillage of soil, etc.,

(ii) dairy farming,

(iii) production, cultivation, glowing and harvesting of any horticulture commodity,

(iv) raising of livestock, bees or poultry, and

(v) any practice performed on a farm as incidental to or in conjunction with farm operations (including any forestry or timbering operations) and preparation for market and delivery to storage or to market or to carriage for transportation of farm products;

(b) "bank" means"

(i) a banking company as defined in the Banking Regulation Act, 1949;

(ii) the State Bank of India constituted under the State Bank of India Act, 1955;

(iii) a subsidiary bank as defined in the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959;

(iv) a corresponding new Bank constituted under the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970;

(v) the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation, constitute under the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation Act, 1963;

(vi) the Agricultural Finance Corporation, a Company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956;

(vii) a Regional Rural Bank established under the Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976; and

(viii) any other financial institution notified by the State Government in the official Gazette as a bonk for the purposes of this Act;

(c) "Civil Court" includes"

(i) any court exercising jurisdiction under the Provincial Insolvency Act, 1920; and

(ii) a court exercising powers under the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887;

(d) "Co-operative society" means a society registered or deemed to have been registered under the Orissa Co-operative Societies Act, 1962;

(e) "debt" means all liabilities to a money-lender in cash or kind secured or unsecured, payable under a decree or order of a Civil Court or other wise including any transaction which is in substance a debt, and subsisting on the date of the commencement of this Act whether due or not due;

(f)

"money-lender" means a money-lender as defined in the Orissa Money Lenders Act, 1939;

(g)

"rural artisan" means a person who does, not hold any agricultural land and whose principal means bf livelihood is production or repair of traditional tools, implements and other articles or things used for agriculture or purposes ancillary thereto and also a person who normally earns his livelihood by practicing a craft either, by his own labour or by the labour of the members of his family in the rural area and whose annual income does not exceed two thousand and four hundred rupees;

(h) "scheduled debtor" means a person who is a small farmer or a rural artisan or an agricultural labourer and who is ordinarily resident in the State of Orissa;

(i) "small farmer" means a farmer who owns land measuring not more than one standard acre and whose principal source of income is agriculture or any allied occupations;

(j) "standard acre" means a standard acre as defined in the Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960.

(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force or in any contract or other instrument having force of law by virtue of any such law, and save as otherwise expressly provided by section 5, every debt incurred by a scheduled debtor, before the commencement of this Act including the amount of Interest, if any, payable on such debt shall be deemed to Have been wholly discharged, and"

(a) no such debt due from a scheduled debtor shall be recoverable from him or from any movable or immovable property belonging to him, nor shall any such property be liable to be attached or sold or be proceeded against in, any manner in the execution of any decree or order relating to such debt;

(b) no Civil Court shall entertain any suit or proceeding against a scheduled debtor for the recovery of such debt or any portion thereof or any interest due thereon:

Provided that where a suit or proceeding is instituted jointly against a scheduled debtor and any other person, nothing in this clause, shall apply to the maintainability of a suit or proceeding in so far as it relates to such other person:

(c) all suits and proceedings (including appeals, revisions, proceedings in execution and attachment), pending on the date of commencement of this Act for the recovery of ' an^ such- debt or interest due thereon against a scheduled debtor shall abate: