P S NARAYANASWAMI AIYAR Vs. AMALLU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition arises out of a suit filed by the Petitioner, as receiver appointed in execution of his decree in S.C.S. No. 22 of 1932, against the defendant who is a tenant of the judgment-debtor in that suit. The amount decreed in S.C.S. No. 22 of 1932 was sought to be recovered out of the rent payable by the defendant to the judgment-debtor in Kanni 1108. The attachment seems to have been confirmed and plaintiff appointed receiver for the collection of the amount, by order dated 14 July, 1932. About this time a simple mortgagee of the land from the judgment-debtor had filed a suit O.S. No. 130 of 1932 to enforce his mortgage, and during the pendency of that suit he applied for the appointment of a receiver. In connection with that receiver petition, the mortgagor proposed on. 20 July, 1932 to deposit to the credit of the mortgage suit the Kanni rent of the mortgaged properties and the amount was fixed at Rs. 350, Time was given till 27 July. On the 27 July, the present defendant who was the tenant in possession of the land thought fit to apply to be impleaded as a defendant in the mortgage suit, and on the 28 July, he deposited to the credit of that suit the sum of Rs. 350 in fulfilment of the undertaking given by the mortgagor on the 20 July. The tenant also seems to have filed an undertaking to pay future rents into Court as and when they fell due, with the result that the petition for appointment of a receiver in the mortgage suit was dismissed.

(2.) It will be noticed that the payment of Rs. 350 into Court was nearly two weeks after the attachment in S.C.S. No. 22 of 1932 had been confirmed. The Plaintiff as Receiver in the Small Cause Suit applied to the Court to be paid out of this deposit, the amount due under the Small Cause decree, evidently on the assumption that it is only the balance that can be available to the mortgagee. But the Court dismissed the application stating that it was the mortgagor who had been directed to deposit the money into Court, and the fact that he caused the tenant to make the deposit will not justify the view that the amount in deposit represents the rent attached by the present petitioner. If I may so, this was the right view to take. But somehow the same District Munsif has now changed his opinion. In the present suit he has held that this order of his dismissing the present plaintiff's application for payment out might have been questioned by appropriate proceedings but that none the less the deposit made to the credit of the mortgage suit must be treated as payment of rent into Court by the tenant, sufficient to discharge him from any further liability.

(3.) I am unable to agree in the view now taken by the lower Court. Order 21, Rule 46, Clause (3) of the Civil P. C. provides that a debtor prohibited under Clause (1) of that rule from making payment of a debt until further orders of the Court "may pay the amount of his debt in Court" and such payment shall discharge him as effectually as payment to the party entitled to the same, the payment contemplated here is payment into the attaching Court so as to be available for the attaching decree-holder and not payment into the particular Court-house even when the payment is ear-marked for some other purpose. Turning now to Section 64 of the Civil P. C. it provides that any payment to the judgment-debtor of the attached debt contrary to the attachment shall be void as against all claims enforceable under the attachment. The mere fact that the debtor does not pay money into the hands of the judgment-debtor but to somebody else will not make it any the less payment contrary to the attachment, if payment is made at the instance of or for the benefit of the judgment- debtor. If, on the other hand, the person who has been prohibited from paying the debt by one Court pays it elsewhere, or even into the same Court, under compulsion of law the position may be different.