BISSESSERDAS DAGA Vs. GABDUMAL BRAHMIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants obtained a decree against Ali Ahmad and others in civil Suit No. 28 of 1920 on 8th January 1923 in the Court of the Additional District Judge, Jubbulpore. In execution of the decree they obtained a prohibitory order against the respondents in respect of certain debt due by them to their judgment-debtors. The respondents are residents of Gorella Tahsil, district Bilaspur. They objected to the attachment but their objection was dismissed. They consequently filed a suit out of which this appeal arises for a declaration that the attachment was illegal and void on the ground that the Court of Jubbulpore had no jurisdiction to pass the prohibitory order. The lower Court found that neither the debt which was attached under that prohibitory order, nor the debtors were subject to the jurisdiction of the Court. It consequently held that the prohibitory order was null and void and decreed the plaintiff's claim.

(2.) IT is urged on behalf of the appellants that as the Court of Jubbulpure has jurisdiction to prohibit the judgment-debtors from recovering the debt due to them by the respondents it has also jurisdiction to attach the debt. Reliance is placed on Srimati Kantabala Delya v. Baijnath Marwari AIR 1932 Pat 148. In that case the question of interpretation of Order 21, Rule 46 did not arise. There the interest of a mortgagee in a mortgaged property which was under the management of a manager appointed uuder the Chota Nagpur Encumbered Estates Act was attached in execution of the decree against him, and it was held that what was attached was not the mortgage debt nor the right, title and interest of the mortgagee in the mortgaged property itself, but the right to receive such sums as the manager of the encumbered estate would have thought fit in justice and equity to pay to the creditor, and therefore the Court having jurisdiction over the subject matter of the attachment was not the Court within whose jurisdiction the mortgaged property was situated, but the Court within whose jurisdiction the judgment-debtor, namely the creditor of the encumbered estate, resided. At the bar reference was made to Begg, Dunlop and Co. v. Jaganath Marwari (1912) 89 Cal 104, and their Lordships distinguished it specifically on the ground that what was attached was not the mortgage debt but merely a right to receive such sums as he thought fit in justice and equity to pay to the creditor who was the judgment-debtor. This question specifically arose in Bank of Bengal v. Sarat Ch. Mittra AIR 1918 Pat 126, where Atkinson. J., after referring to the relevant sections of the Civil Procedure Code, enunciated the principle in these terms: Speaking generally, it is an accepted principle of international jurisprudence that the jurisdiction of a Court in enforcing execution of its decrees is restricted by its territorial limitations. That is to say, the jurisdiction of Courts is circumscribed by and co-extensive with its territorial limits. Thus a Court desiring to seize or attach the property of a judgment-debtor outside its jurisdiction and where such property is in the hands of or custody of another, also outside the jurisdiction, such property sought to be attached in aid of the executing Court can only be reached by a regular method of procedure which has been prescribed by the Rules of the Civil Procedure Code, and similar codes which prevail in all countries, viz., the decree of the executing Court must be transferred to the local limits of the jurisdiction of the external Court within which the property sought to be attached is for the time being.