PURSHOTTAM NARAYAN JOGLEKAR Vs. BALVANT BABAJI GURAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This reference has been made by the Judge of the Court of Small Causes in Poona in the course of execution proceedings wherein the judgment-creditor caused to be attached three casks of country-liquor which were in the judgment-debtor's shop. These casks were removed to the Court-house and it was presumably the intention of the judgment-creditor to have them sold.

(2.) The Collector at Poona intervened, his intervention taking the form of letters addressed to the Judge. He stated that the liquor should not have been removed without a transport or permit from his office, that it could not be sold without a permit under the Abkari Act, and that the purchaser could not remove it without a permit which the Collector stated he did not intend to give, and he asked that attachment might be removed.

(3.) This has caused the Judge of the Court of Small Causes to feel doubt as to the answers to the following two questions which he has referred to this Court:- 1st. Whether country liquor is exempt from attachment and sale in execution of a money decree passed by a Civil Court, and 2ndly. If not, whether the Collector's permission is necessary for its attachment and sale. 3. The answer to the first question must, in my opinion, be in the negative. Nothing has been pointed out to us in the law from which we can infer that country liquor is exempt from attachment and sale in execution. The liquor had admittedly been purchased and paid for by the judgment-debtor; it was his property. There was no doubt it could be sold by him though he had to deal with it in accordance with the terms of his license and the provisions of the Abkari Act. It is, therefore, clear that it is saleable property, and is covered by the provisions of the first part of Section 266 of the Civil P. C..