- In this Act unless the context otherwise requires-(a)"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 otherwise 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;(b)"Scheduled debtor" means a person who is a small farmer, or a marginal farmer, or a rural artisan, or an agricultural labourer, who is ordinarily resident in the State of Bihar;(c)"Small farmer" means a farmer who owns land measuring not more than two acres of irrigated land or four acres of unirrigated land:Provided that for a small farmer belonging to any of the Scheduled Tribes the maximum area of land to be owned and cultivated for the purposes of this Act will be four acres of irrigated land or eight acres of unirrigated land;(d)"Marginal farmer" means a farmer who owns land measuring not more than one acre of irrigated land or two acres of unirrigated land:Provided that for a marginal farmer belonging to any of the Scheduled Tribes, the maximum area of land to be owned and cultivated for the purposes of this Act will be two acres of irrigated land or four acres of unirrigated land;(e)"Rural artisan" is a person who does not hold any agricultural land and whose principal means of livelihood is production or repair of traditional tools, implements and other articles or things used for agriculture or purposes ancilliary thereto and also a person who normally earns his livelihood by practising 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 Rs. 2,400;(f)"Agricultural labourer" is 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 in kind or partly in cash and partly in kind and who does not hold more than one acre of irrigated or two acres of unirrigated land and whose annual income does not exceed Rs. 2,400:-(i)farming including cultivation all tillage of soil etc.,(ii)dairy farming,(iii)production, cultivation, growing and harvesting of any horticultural 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 operations for market and delivery to storage to carriage for transportation of farm production;(g)"Bank" means-(i)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)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 Corporation, constituted under the Agricultural Refinance Corporation Act, 1963;(vi)the Agricultural Finance Corporation, a Company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956; and(vii)any other financial institution notified by the State Government in the Official Gazette as a bank for the purpose of this Act;(h)"Civil Court" means and includes-(i)any court exercising jurisdiction under the Provincial Insolvency Act, 1920 (Act V of 1920);(ii)a Gram cutchery established under the Bihar Panchayat Raj Act, 1947 (Bihar Act VII of 1948);(iii)a court exercising powers under the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887 (Act IX of 1887);(i)"Co-operative Society" means a society registered or deemed to have been registered under the provisions of the *Bihar and Orissa Cooperative Society Act, 1935 (B. & O. Act VI of 1935); and(j)"Money lender" means a money-lender as defined in section 2 of the Bihar Money Lenders Act, 1974 (Bihar Act XXII of 1975).
