Amendment of section 3, Central Act X of 1918

In section 3 of the said Act-

(i) in sub-section (I), for the words, letters and bracketE b e g i ~ i n g with ''has reason to believe" and ending with "any of the following powers, namely, may," the following shall be substituted, namely:-

"has reason to believe that the transaction was, as between the parties thereto, substantially unfair, the Court shall exercise one or more of the followins powers, namely--" ;

(ii) the Explanntion to the same sub-section shall be renumbered as Explanation 11 and the following shall be inserted as Explanation I, namely :-

"Explanation I.-If the interest is excessive, the Court shall presume that the transaction was subs-tantially unfair ; but such presumption may be rebutted by proof of special circumstances justifying the rate of interest." ;

(iii) to cla~ise (b) of sub-section (2), the following proviso shall be added, namely :-

"Provided that in the case of loans to agricul-turists, if co~llpound interest is charged, the Court shall presume that the interest is excessive "; and

(iv) the Explanation to clause (d) of the same sub-section sl~all be omitted.