KHIMJI POONJA AND CO Vs. RATANSHI HIRJI BHOJRAJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This miscellaneous appeal and civil revision have been preferred against the same order of the subordinate Judge of Dhanbad. Many questions of law have been raised and argued in the course of this hearing, but in the view we take of the matter, it is only necessary to refer to one of them.

(2.) The question of law which has to be dealt with is whether a decree for accounts passed in a suit for dissolution of partnership and for partnership accounts is saleable at the instance of a creditor who has attached it in execution of his decree.

(3.) In Ratanshi Hirji V/s. Tricumji Jiwandas A.I.R. 1940 Pat. 107 it was held that such a decree is liable to attachment and that the attachment should be made in the manner prescribed by Order 21, Rule 53(4), Civil P.C. In that case it was not necessary to decide whether the decree which had been attached would be saleable. When the preliminary decree in the partnership suit eventuates in a final decree, what the decree-holder obtains is a decree for money and such a decree is not saleable but must be executed by the attaching creditor under Rule 53(1) of Order 21. Of the many cases to which we have been referred, the only one directly in point is Sidlingappa V/s. Shankarappa (03) 27 Bom. 556. That was a case of creditors of a partnership obtaining a money decree against a firm and in execution of the decree seeking to attach and sell a decree for dissolution of the firm and for the taking of the partnership accounts. It was held that the decree could be attached, but could not be sold.