(1.) THE appeal to the High Court in this case was from an order of the Subordinate Judge of Shahdbad made upon an application for execution of a decree, praying that an attachment and sale of the judgment debtor's property specified in the application should be had for the purpose of satisfying the decree. A question arose as to whether the Statute of Limitations was a bar to that application, and the Subordinate Judge held that the debtor's plea of limitation should be disallowed, with costs. He did not go on to say that the attachment be issued; but their Lordships treat the order as substantially an order that the debtor's plea of limitation should be disallowed, and that the application should be granted. The case was appealed to the High Court, and that Court dismissed the appeal upon the ground that the order was not an appealable order within the meaning of the 588th section of Act X. of 1877. The section says:- " An appeal shall lie from the following orders under this Code, and from no other such orders," and then a number of orders are enumerated; and amongst them are the orders specified in clauses J. and R. Clause J. is:- " Orders under Section 244 as to questions relating to the execution of decrees of the same nature with appealable orders made in the course of a suit;" and one of the orders in clause R is an order under Section 485, by which property of the Defendant sufficient to satisfy any decree which may be passed in the suit may, under certain circumstances, be attached in the course of a suit, and need not, according to the provisions of Section 490, be re-attached in execution of such decree. The question then is whether an order for attachment and sale in execution of a decree is an order " of the same nature " as an order made in the course of a suit for attachment of the debtor's property. Their Lordships think that the nature of the order in both cases is an order for attachment of property, and that an order for attachment of property in execution of a decree is an order of the same nature as an order for attachment of property in the course of the suit. Indeed, the only appealable order in the course of a suit at all resembling an order for attachment of property in execution of a decree is an order under Section 485. Their Lordships, therefore, are of opinion that, taking the order under appeal as substantially an order for attachment and sale of the property in execution of the decree, it was an appealable order within Section 588. The learned Judges of the High Court have not very clearly stated their reasons, but the learned Chief Justice, Sir Richard Garth, does state that the order in this case was substantially, and in fact, an order to grant an application for attachment and sale; and in that remark their Lordships concur. They therefore think that the order of the High Court ought to be reversed, so far as it says that the order is not appealable. Their Lordships being of that opinion have heard the appeal.
(2.) THE grounds of appeal are frivolous. The suit was originally commenced in the Court of the Judge of Ghazipore. The case was appealed to the High Court, and ultimately to the Queen in Council. The judgment was affirmed, and was sent back to the Judge of Ghazipore for the purpose of being executed; but in the meantime an order had been made by Government for changing the boundaries of the districts of Ghazipore and Shahabad, and by virtue thereof the lands which were the subject of the suit, and which were originally in the district of Ghazipore, had become lands in the district of Shahabad. The Judge of Ghazipore, therefore, could not execute the decree, and it was necessary for him to send the decree to the Judge of Shahabad for the purpose of being executed. The Judge of Ghazipore did not do it himself, but he referred it to the Subordinate Judge, and directed him to send a certified copy of the judgment to the Judge of Shahabad to be executed.
(3.) THEN it was urged that when the Judge of Shahabad got it, he, instead of executing it himself, referred it to the Subordinate Judge for the purpose of being executed, and that he could not legally do so; but when their Lordships look at Act VIII. of 1859, Sections 287, they think that the Judge of Shahabad clearly had the power of referring the decree to the Subordinate Judge, for the purpose of its being executed by him. The 287th section of that Act enacts as follows: " The copy of any decree, or of any order for execution, when filed in the Court to which it shall have been transmitted for the purpose of being executed as aforesaid, shall for such purpose have the same effect as a decree or order for execution made by such Court, and may, if the Court be the principal Civil Court of original jurisdiction in the district, be executed by such Court, or any Court subordinate thereto to which it may entrust the execution of the same." It seems clear that, under the very words of Section 287, the Judge of Shahabad had a perfect right to entrust the execution of the decree to the Subordinate Judge.