1. A. decree passed by the Court of Small Causes was pending execution. An application was filed for transferring the decree to the Munsiff's Court so as to enable the decree holder to proceed against the immovable properties of the judgment-debtor. That application was dismissed. Consequently, the execution petition was also dismissed. The order is challenged in this Civil Revision Petition.

2. The decree obtained by the petitioner from the Court of Small Causes was for a sum of less than rupees three hundred with costs and interest. Petitioner made some attempts to execute the decree by proceeding against the judgment-debtor in person as well as his movable properties. Having failed in such attempts, he filed the application for transferring the decree to the Munsiff's Court. It is contented that the transferring court should not have decided the question whether any future application is liable to be dismissed. The further contention is that the execution petition should not have, at any rate, been dismissed since the decree-holder has not exhausted his attempts to execute the decree even in the court before which the execution was pending.

3. I have to decide first whether the decree passed by the Court of Small Causes could be transferred to the Munsiff's Court for execution. If that is not possible, it is unnecessary to consider whether the transferring court has the power to decide the question whether any application to be filed thereafter is liable to be dismissed as barred by limitation.

4. S.7 of the Code of Civil Procedure (for short'the Code') provides that the provisions mentioned in the section shall not extend to courts exercising jurisdiction of a Court of Small Causes. One of the provisions included in the Section relates to "the execution of a decree against immovable property". 0.21 R.82 of the Code contains the provision that "sales of immovable property in execution of decrees may be ordered by any Court other than a Court of Small Causes". From the aforesaid provisions it is clear that the court which exercises jurisdiction of the Small Causes Court has no power to execute a decree by proceeding against any immovable property. S.38 of the Code permits a decree to be executed "either by the court which passed it or by the court to which it is sent for execution". However, S.39 (1) provides that a decree may be sent for execution to a court "of competent jurisdiction". This has the effect of precluding other courts from executing decrees. What is meant by a court "of competent jurisdiction" Those words ("of competent jurisdiction") were inserted in the Code by the C. P. C. Amendment Act of 1976. The same Amendment Act inserted sub-s. (3) also in the main section. The newly added words in sub-s. (1) cannot be read in isolation from sub-s. (3). In fact the former stands explained and even supplemented by the latter. Sub-s. (3) reads thus:

"For the purposes of this section, a Court shall be deemed to be a Court of competent jurisdiction if, at the time of making the application for the transfer of decree to it, such Court would have jurisdiction to try the suit in which such decree was passed". Sub-s. (3) gives a clear idea of what is meant by a court of competent jurisdiction envisaged in the section. Only such court as would have jurisdiction to try the suit is a court of competent jurisdiction. By a legal fiction sub-s. (3) includes within the purview of "court of competent jurisdiction" such courts which would have become competent if the suit could have been instituted at the time when the application for transfer is made. This in otherwords, would mean that a decree cannot be transferred to a court which has no jurisdiction to try the parent suit either at the time of its actual institution or at the later time when the application for transfer of the decree was filed. Hence it has to be examined whether the Munsiff's Court had jurisdiction to try this suit (in which the decree was passed) at an