JANARDAN GOVIND KARGUPPIKAR Vs. NARAYAN KRISHNAJI KARGUPPIKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The decree with which we are concerned was made by the Subordinate Judge of Belgaum. The decree-holder applied to that Court to transfer the execution of the decree or a part of it to the Court of Shahapur, which is a Court of the Native State of Sangli. It is conceded that if this application does not save limitation under Art. 182, further execution is now barred. If it does, the latest application for execution is in time.

(2.) The point is a very narrow one. It has been considered by a Bench of the Punjab Chief Court Nawab Saadat Ali Khan v. Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan (1881) P.R. No. 107 of 1881 and a Full Bench of the Madras High Court Pierce Leslie v. Perumal (1917) I.L.R. 40 Mad. 1069.F.B. These judgments reach the same conclusion. In effect they hold that "execution" in Art. 182 must be strictly confined to execution authorised and controlled by the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code. Nothing done to get in the property decreed, which is not done within those statutory limits, is execution at all. The Civil Procedure Code does not authorize any of our Courts to send their decrees for execution to any Court of a Native State. Therefore an application to a British Court to send one of its decrees to the Court of a Native State is not an application to "take a step-in-aid of execution." Although the Madras High Court at any rate rejects the extension of the conclusion to the words in accordance with law , the reasoning appears to me to go quite that length, because what is asked to be done is not expressly authorized by any section of the Civil Procedure Code and is not therefore "execution " or by a slight extension of the same reasoning, a step-in-aid of execution. Such is the simple reasoning adopted by both the Punjab Chief Court, and the Madras High Court in support of the conclusion, that such an application is not within the meaning of Art. 182 and does not save limitation. The conclusion itself appears slightly grotesque in view of changed conditions and the very plain policy of the Legislature, as expressed in Notifications of the Government of India, embodying the results of its diplomatic dealings with the Native States. It may be very good law, but it is certainly not very good sense. Nevertheless if this is the only construction which can be put upon the Statute law, the answer is plain. It is for the Legislature, not for the Courts, to correct the absurdity. The Courts are not to make the law; they are only to enforce it.

(3.) Since, however, in certain sots of facts, the conclusion is plainly repugnant to common sense, it may be worthwhile to ask whether some other and broader line of reasoning may not yield a more satisfactory result.