KANNAPPA MUDALI Vs. VARADACHARIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal raises the question of the jurisdiction of the Civil Court to which an award by a Registrar under the Madras Cooperative Societies Act has been transmitted for execution, to recognise an assignment under Order 21, Rule 16, Civil Procedure Code. In a very recent case (C.M.S.A. No. 188 of 1936) I held that an assignee could apply under Order 21, Rule 16 for execution. But that decision was not based on any specific argument regarding the forum in which an application for assignment should be made in the first instance. The argument now put forward is that if there is any power in the assignee to execute an award under the Co- operative Societies Act the assignment must first be recognised by the Court which passed the decree, which is in effect not the Civil Court, but the Court of the Registrar of Co-operative Societies.

(2.) The award in the present case was in favour of a cooperative bank and it was transferred to the Civil Court at the instance of the bank and execution was taken out by the bank. While the execution petition was pending, there was an assignment to the present respondent and the execution proceedings instituted by the bank were stopped and the assignee applied to the executing Court for recognition of his assignment and for execution. Notice of this application went to the judgment-debtors. There was no objection and the assignment was recognised. Further notice was issued of the sale application and again there was no objection. After the sale had been ?ordered the present appellants, one of them claiming to be a transferee from the judgment-debtors of the properties to be sold, applied to the Court by way of review to cancel the order recognising the assignment in favour of the respondent. Both the Courts below have held that the recognition of the assignment was within the powers of the Court.

(3.) Section 51 of the Co-operative Societies Act gives the Registrar power to deal with disputes of members and persons claiming under them either inter se or with the society, or between the society and its servants touching the business of a registered society. Rule 15(7) of the rules framed under the Act prescribes three ways in which the decision or award of the Registrar in such a dispute can be enforced. One is by invoking the powers of the Registrar himself under Rule 22 to execute the award. The second is by a requisition to the Collector or his deputy to recover the amounts awarded as if they were arrears of land-revenue. The third, with which we are now concerned, is by an application to the Civil Court having jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the decision or award, which Court shall enforce the decision or award as if it were a final decree of the Court. I would point out that the power of the Civil Court is not merely to execute the decree as if the Registrar were a Court and as if the decree were merely a decree of the Registrar's Court transferred to it for execution; but it is a power to enforce the award, as if it were a final decree of the Court itself. That is to say, the executing Court is to my mind for purposes of execution put in the same position as a Court executing one of its own decrees.