BRAJAMOHAN MAHAPATRA Vs. RAMENDRA KUMAR DEB MANDAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal arises out of a proceeding in execution of a rent decree. The decree was passed in 1931, and on a number of occasions subsequently execution was levied on it. In 1934, and again in 1935, certain movable property belonging to several of the judgment-debtors was attached. These attachments were made by a Chakla Kanungo, and, in each case, the Chakla Kanungo sold the property and made over the sale proceeds to the decree-holder. The question that arises in the appeal is a somewhat curious one, namely, whether in making the payments which he did to the decree-holder, the Chakla Kanungo was an agent authorised in that behalf by the judgment-debtors. The appeal, it should, be explained, came previously before a Divisional Bench which held that Section 20, Limitation Act, might apply to save limitation and remanded the case in order that it might be determined whether or not these payments did in, fact, come within the purview of that section. The contention put forward on behalf of the decree holder is, on the face of it, a somewhat startling one. Nevertheless, it has been accepted by the learned District Judge who relied on two decisions of the Madras High Court. In the earlier of these decisions Gobindasami Pillai V/s. Dasai Goundan A.I.R. 1921 Mad. 704 much reliance was placed on the decision of the House of Lords in Chinnery V/s. Evans (1864) 11 H.L.C. 115. Referring to that decision Coutts-Trotter J. said that the principle to be deduced from it was this: that if a debtor's assets are so placed either by his own act or by operation of law, that, if some one other than he alone can release them for the purpose of making payments due from him, then the act of that other in operating upon the debtor's assets must be treated as the act of the debtor himself, the volition of the debtor in such a case being neither requisite nor relevant.

(2.) The facts with which Coutts Trotter and Sadasiva Ayyar JJ. had to deal in that case were of a very extraordinary kind. It appears that after a final decree had been passed for the sale of certain mortgaged property, the property was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act and the compensation money was paid into Court, the Collector having presumably been informed that a final decree for the sale of the property had been passed. Eventually, the District Judge made an order directing that the money should be paid out to the mortgagee decree-holder.

(3.) It was contended that in making this payment the District Judge was acting as the authorised agent of the judgment-debtor, and that, in consequence, it availed to save limitation. The amount deposited in Court as compensation was, it should be explained, less than the amount due under the decree, and the decree-holder had levied execution for the balance. The other and later decision is that of a Judge sitting singly. In that case Venkatasubayya V/s. G. Seshayya A.I.R. 1927 Mad. 80, the facts bore a resemblance, but only a superficial resemblance, to those with which the Court had to deal in the earlier case. A sum of money had been deposited to the credit of the father of the judgment-debtor in a suit in which he was the plaintiff and which was pending when the suit in which the decree was eventually passed was instituted. The money was attached before judgment, and after judgment was delivered and the suit was decreed it was paid out to the decree-holder. Jackson J., relying on the observations of Coutts-Trotter J., which I have already quoted, would apparently have been prepared to hold that, in making this payment, the Court was acting as the agent of the judgment-debtor if, the money had been deposited to the credit of the judgment debtor and not, as in fact it was, to the credit of the father of the judgment-debtor. Mr. S.P. Mahapatra, for the respondents, would extend the proposition laid down by Coutts-Trotter J. even further than Jackson J. was apparently prepared to extend it.