MELARKODE BANK LTD Vs. DAMODARASWAMI NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are decree-holders in the Sub-Court, Coimbatore. These petitions raise an interesting point of rateable distribution. There were five decrees against the same judgment- debtor, two obtained in the Tiruppur District Munsiff's Court, and three in the Sub-Court. The decree-holder in the Tiruppur District Munsiff's Court in O.S. No. 494 of 1944, who is the second respondent, first got some immoveable property sold and Rs. 4,915 which was realised was brought into the District Munsiff's Court. The other decree-holder in the District Munsiff's Court got his decree in O.S. No. 65 of 1945, transferred to the Sub-Court for execution, for what reason it is neither disclosed nor material, and attached the same immoveable property. It was then disclosed that it had already been sold by the District Munsiff. The Sub-Court acting under Section 63, Civil Procedure Code, sent for the amount which was received by it on 7 September, 194.6. Prior to the receipt of this money in the Sub-Court, the three decree-holders there filed execution petitions. The learned Subordinate Judge held that they are not entitled to rateable distribution on the ground that they did not file their execution petitions prior to the receipt of the sale proceeds in the District Munsiff's Court. The Sub-Court decree-holders now seek in revision to revise this order and to establish their claims to rateable distribution. These petitions resolve them-selves therefore into a contest between three Sub-Court decree-holders who have been deprived of rateable distribution and two decree-holders in the District Munsiff's Court who have been held entitled to rateable distribution.

(2.) Section 73 (1) in this matter appears to me to be perfectly clear. It reads: Where assets are held by a Court and more persons than one have, before the receipt of such assets, made application to the Court for the execution of decrees for the payment of money passed against the same judgment-debtor and have not obtained satisfaction thereof, the assets, after deducting the costs of realisation,shall be rateably distributed among all such persons.

(3.) The first point to be decided is, what is the Court holding the assets ? There can be no doubt that it is the Sub-Court which as the Court of highest grade under Section 63(I) has cast upon it the responsibility of deciding all claims and effecting rateable distribution. The next simple point to be determined in this section is, when the assets were received by the Sub-Court. On this point also, there is no doubt and no dispute. The money was received in the Sub-Court on 7 September, 1946. It then follows on a simple reading of Section 73 (1) that any decree-holder who had made an. application to the Sub-Court before this date is entitled to-rateable distribution. The learned Subordinate Judge was guided or rather misguided himself by a decision of Madhavan Nair, J., reported in Tkanmull v Krishnaswami and in my view wrongly applied a proposition he enunciated in a case in which the factual background was completely different. That was a case in which the District Munsiff's Court attached and sold some property and in which a creditor in the Sub-Court also attached the same property. When the: Subordinate Judge called upon the District Munsiff to send up the sale proceeds, the latter was unable to do so as he had permitted the decree-holder to enter a set off. The result was that the Sub-Court decree-holder had to file a suit under Section 73(2), Civil Procedure Code and the judgments of the two lower courts. giving him a decree were substantially confirmed by Madhavan Nair, J., in second appeal. In the course of his judgment he set out certain conclusions and referred to a category of cases under Section 63, Civil Procedure Code, in which the receipt: of assets by one of the courts contemplated in that section amounted to a constructive receipt of assets by each of such courts. That decision had as its objective a liberal one, namely, the extension of the right to rateable distribution to a decree-holder who had been deprived of it in somewhat unusual circumstances. I have carefully perused that decision and can find in it no support for the view taken by the learned Subordinate Judge that it was binding on him in his decision on these rateable distribution applications.