21.
| (1) Where, in any case to which section 20 applies, an owner commences an action to enforce a right to recover possession of goods from a hirer after seventy-five per- centum of the hire-purchase price has been paid or tendered as aforesaid, the owner shall not take any step to enforce payment of any sum due under the hire-purchase agreement or under any contract of guarantee relating to the agreement, except by claiming the sum in the action. |
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| (2) All the parties to the agreement and any guarantor shall be made parties to the action. |
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| (3) Pending the hearing of the action the court shall, in addition to any other powers, have power, upon the application of the owner, to make such orders as the court thinks just for the purpose of protecting the goods from damage or depreciation, including, orders restricting or prohibiting the use of the goods or giving directions as to , their, custody. |
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| (4) On the hearing of the action the court may, without prejudice to any other power
| | (a) make an order for the specific delivery of all the goods to the owner ; or | | |
| | (b) make an order for the specific delivery of all the goods to the owner and postpone the operation of the order
| | | (i) on condition that the hirer or guarantor pays the unpaid balance of the hire-purchase price at such times and in such amounts as the court thinks just having due regard to the means of the hirer or guarantor and any other relevant circumstances ; and |
| (ii) subject to the fulfillment of such other conditions by the hirer or guarantor as the court thinks just; or |
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| | (c) make an order for the specific delivery of a part of the goods to the owner and for the transfer to the hirer of the owner's title to the remainder of the goods. | | |
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| (5) The court shall not make an order transferring to the hirer the owner's title to a part of the goods unless it is satisfied that the amount which the hirer has paid in respect of the hire-purchase price exceeds the price of the part of the goods (determined in accordance with subsection (8)) by at least seventy-five per centum of the unpaid balance of the hire-purchase price. |
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| (6) Where damages have been awarded against the owner in the proceedings, the court may treat the hirer as having paid in respect of the hire-purchase price, in addition to the actual amount paid, the amount of the damages or such part thereof as the court thinks fit, and thereupon the damages shall accordingly be remitted either in whole or in part. |
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| (7) In this section and elsewhere in this Act "order for the specific delivery of any goods " means an order for the delivery of the goods to the owner without giving the hirer an option to pay their value. |
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| (8) In this section "price", in relation to any goods, means such part of the hire-purchase price as is assigned to those goods by the note or memorandum of the hire- purchase agreement or if no such assignment is made, such part of the hire-purchase price as the court may determine. |
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| (9) If at any time before the hearing of an action to which this section applies the owner has recovered possession of a part of the goods, the references in subsection (4) to all the goods shall be construed as references to all the goods which the owner has not recovered, and if the parties have not agreed upon an adjustment of the hire-purchase price in respect of the goods so recovered, the court may, for the purposes of the paragraphs (b) and (c) of that subsection make such reduction of the hire-purchase price and of the unpaid balance of it as the court thinks just. |
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| (10) When an owner has recovered a part of the goods let under a hire-purchase agreement and the recovery was effected in contravention of section 20, the provisions of this section shall not apply in relation to any action by the owner to recover the remainder of the goods. |
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Sri Lanka Consolidated Acts