SAMBASIVA REDDI Vs. OFFICIAL RECEIVER OF SOUTH ARCOT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Civil Miscellaneous Appeal arises from the following circumstances. The Official Receiver of South Arcot presented to the District Court at Cuddalore a petition under Sections 53, 54 and 4 of the Provincial Insolvency Act to set aside two mortgages. The learned District Judge transferred that petition to the file of the Subordinate Court of Cuddalore which dealt with the petition and it was declared the two mortgages in question were fraudulent and void as against the Official Receiver under Secs.53 and 54 of the Provincial Insolvency Act. Hence this Civil Miscellaneous Appeal. When the matter was first argued before us we took the point that the Subordinate Judge of Cuddalore had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition at all and, as there seemed to be at that time some doubt regarding the local limits of the jurisdiction of that Court and we wished to know how the petition came to be transferred by the District Court to that Subordinate Court, we adjourned the matter requesting the District Judge to report the circumstances in which the Subordinate Judge came to try and decide the petition and also what the insolvency jurisdictions of the District and Sub-Court are respectively and under what notification of the Government the Sub-Court has been given insolvency jurisdiction. The matter now comes before us on the report of the District Judge at Cuddalore. He reports that the Sub-Court, Cuddalore, was from the 1 November, 1913, invested with local jurisdiction over the whole of Cuddalore, Chidambaram and Vriddhachalam Taluks of the South Arcot District and that this was by notification at page 1796 of Part II of the Fort St. George Gazette dated 28 October, 1913. Then as regards the insolvency jurisdiction he reports as follows: Under G.O. No. 1731 Law (General) dated Sth June, 1924, communicated in High Court's Dis. No. 1254 of 1924 published at page 650, Part I of the Fort St. George Gazette dated 10 June, 1924, all Subordinate Courts in the Presidency were invested with jurisdiction under the Provincial Insolvency Act in respect of all petitions presented by creditors. Ever since then the District Court had been exercising insolvency jurisdiction over the entire District while the Sub-Court was exercising concurrent jurisdiction over the three taluks of Chidambaram, Vriddhachalam and Cuddalore over which it had territorial jurisdiction.

(2.) He adds that his predecessor in order to give work to the Additional Sub-Judge transferred the petition in question to him and that was how the Sub-Court came to hear and decide the petition.

(3.) The question is whether the District Judge had any power to transfer this petition to the Subordinate Judge of Cuddalore. It is common ground that this insolvency was outside the territorial jurisdiction of that Sub-Court, that is to say, it originated in some place outside the local limits of the jurisdiction of that Court. The question therefore is whether the Provincial Insolvency Act gives any power to the Local Government by notification to give jurisdiction to a Subordinate Court which otherwise and apart from the notification has no insolvency jurisdiction whatsoever, to deal with and dispose of insolvency matters which originate in some place which is not within the local limits of the jurisdiction of that Court. The notification in question was issued under Section 3 of the Provincial Insolvency Act which reads as follows: The District Courts shall be the Courts having jurisdiction under this Act. Provided that the Local Government may, by notification in the local Official Gazette, invest any Court Subordinate to a District Court with jurisdiction in any class of cases and any Court so invested shall within the local limits of its jurisdiction have concurrent jurisdiction with the District Court under this Act.