T R TAWKER AND SONS Vs. HARSOOKDOSS CHOUGHMULL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This matter comes before us on a petition for stay of the sale of property pending appeal from an interlocutory order of Kumaraswami Sastri, J., who, acting under Rule 206 of the Original Side Rules, had to determine in Chambers certain questions as to the advertisement of some moveable property taken in execution and as to reserve prices to be put upon the articles. The execution debtor is not satisfied with the order and the directions given. Therefore, he brings this appeal.

(2.) A preliminary point is taken that no appeal lies. An appeal lies under the Letters Patent from all judgments given on the Original Side of this Court. The question is whether this order is a judgment. Rule 206 of the Original Side Rules corresponds to Order 21, Rule 66 of the Civil Procedure Code, and it has been held by a Full Bench of this Court in Sivagami Achi v. Subramania Iyer (1904) I.L.R. 27 M. 259 (F.B.) that matters of this kind determined by Judges under that order or the corresponding sections of the former Civil Procedure Code are not judgments at all, or orders strictly so called; but that the Court is acting in that matter in an administrative or ministerial capacity and that, therefore, no appeal lies. We can find no distinction on this point between appeal coming from the decisions given under Order 21, Rule 66 of the Civil Procedure Code and appeals from the decisions given by the Judge on the Original Side under Rule 206 of the Original Side Rules, and if it is right to hold that the one is ministerial, we are bound to hold that the other also is ministerial. We are bound by the decision of the hull Bench and must, therefore, hold that no appeal lies.

(3.) As, in our judgment, no appeal lies, there is no ground for granting stay, and the petition must be dismissed with costs.