GOVINDAN THANKAPPAN Vs. ARULAYI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision is directed against the order passed by the Second Additional Munsiff, Neyyattinkara, allowing an application filed by the respondents herein/ decree holders for violating the decree in O.S.No.447 of 1989. The petition has been filed under O.21 R.32 and S.151 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The petition filed by the respondent herein before the court below, which is in Malayalam, was read out and translated to me in English at the time of hearing. There is no specific averment that the petitioner herein, despite the opportunity of obeying the decree, wilfully failed to obey it and hence the execution of the decree has become necessary. Except from making a bald statement that the petitioner herein trespassed into the plaint C schedule property and committed theft, there is no specific averment in the execution petition as to how and when exactly the petitioner wilfully disobeyed the decree passed by the court below. The case of the respondents as stated in the petition has been improved by them by letting evidence at the time of trial of the petition.

(2.) IT has been held by this court in a catena of decisions that O.21 R.32 is not intended to punish a contumacious party and that it can be invoked only for enforcement of a decree. Detention in civil prison or attachment of property can be resorted to only so long as decree stands unenforced. According to the Revision Petitioner, he has not trespassed into the suit property and he has no intention to trespass into the said property in future also. It is submitted that he has only a small bit of land and a hut in which he and his family members are residing. It is specifically stated in the revision petition that the petitioner has no intention to violate the decree of court and he has not the capacity even to know about the implication of a decree of court.