Judgement

Consolidated Appeals (No. 93 of 1932) by special leave from two decrees of the Court of the Judicial Commissioner, North-West Frontier Province (December 2, 1930), reversing a decree of the District Judge, Peshawar (February 27, 1930).

The appellant instituted a suit against the respondents in the District Court of Peshawar for declarations that lands of respondent No. 2 had been attached and were still under attachment for the satisfaction of decrees for rent obtained by the appellant in the Revenue Court, and that certain transactions of sale or mortgage effected by respondent No. 2 in favour of respondent No. 1 were ineffectual against his, the appellants, rights. Respondent No. 2 had obtained an order of the Revenue Court setting aside the attachments, and the Revenue Commissioner had dismissed an appeal on the ground that no appeal lay.

The facts appear from the judgment of the Judicial Committee.

The Court of the Judicial Commissioner, reversing a decree of the District Judge, dismissed the suit. The learned Judicial Commissioners said that the object of the suit was nothing more nor less than to get the orders of the executing Court set aside. In their opinion the Revenue Commissioner had been wrong in holding that no appeal lay to him from the order. They doubted whether Order xxi., r. 63, applied, but considered that if a separate suit lay the proper forum was the Revenue Court, not the Civil Court. Further, they held that it was not shown that copies of the orders for attachment had been affixed in the Collectors office in compliance with that Order xxi., r. 54 (2.), and that was fatal to the validity of the attachments.

1934. June 28, 29. Dunne K.C. and Wllach for the appellant.

De Gruyther K.C. and Parikh for respondent No. 1.

July 20. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by

LORD TOMLIN. This is an appeal from the Court of the Judicial Commissioner, North-West Frontier Province, which reversed a decree of the District Judge of Peshawar.

At the outset their Lordships desire to call attention to the unsatisfactory way in which the record in this case has been prepared. Many documents to which reference has necessarily been made have not been printed, and considerable difficulty has been encountered in ascertaining the facts and the nature of the points to be considered. In future, their Lordships will have to consider whether they should hear a case presented in so slovenly a manner until it has been put into proper shape. The time of their Lordships Board should not be occupied in unravelling matters which it is the duty of the parties to present in an intelligible form.

The facts of the case, as their Lordships understand them, are as next narrated.

In December, 1914, the appellant being then about to proceed on war service, granted a number of leases of his lands to various persons. Among these leases was one contained in a registered deed dated December 15, 1914, whereby a lease of certain lands was granted to the second respondent, who is hereafter called the debtor, for five years, at a yearly rent. By clause 12 of the lease the debtor hypothecated certain lands of his own, including 250 kanals in the area of Maho Dheri to secure the rent, and it was provided that the debtor should have no power to sell or mortgage the hypothecated land during the period of the lease, and that the appellant could recover his lease money by sale or mortgage of such land.

The rent fell into arrear, and on January 25, 1918, the appellant obtained against the debtor, in the Revenue Court before the Assistant Collector, a decree for Rs. 1484-8-0, together with costs and future interest.

In April, 1932, after the decision of the Judicial Commissioner, which is the subject of the present appeal, the appellant secured an alteration in the decree of January 25, 1918, by incorporating therein some additional words which had appeared in the antecedent judgment, to the effect that the property hypothecated by the lease s