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1954 Supreme(Mad) 288

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
Mr. Justice Rajagopala Ayyangar, J.
Kannappa Chettiar alias Arunachalam Chettiar
Versus
Kandaswami Pillai
A.A.O. No. 333 of 1952.
Decided On : 23 July 1954

Advocates:
S. Tyagaraja Aiyar for Appellant.
B.C. Seshachala Aiyar and J. Nagarajan for Respondent.

Judgment.-This is a judgment-debtor’s appeal against an order by the learned District Judge of North Arcot allowing the execution of the decree in O.S. No. 292 of 1930 to proceed. To appreciate the point that has been raised by the learned counsel for the appellant, it is necessary to state a few of the facts in the protracted history of this litigation. The respondent obtained a money decree in O.S. No. 292 of 1930 on the file of the Court of the District Munsif, Tiruvannamalai, on 10th April, 1930. Pending the suit, the decree-holder had obtained an attachment before judgment which was effected on 9th April, 1930. But even before this date, on 4th April, 1930, the judgment-debtor had filed I.P. No. 20 of 1930 for his own adjudication and this was ordered on nth September, 1930. On 11th April, 1930, that is, after the institution of the insolvency proceedings, but before the adjudication, the decree-holder filed E.P. No. 391 of 1930 for executing the decree which he had obtained. However, on the application of the judgment-debtor execution proceedings were stayed under section 29 of the Provincial Insolvency Act by order, dated 18th August, 1931. There were several intermediate proceedings in relation to the attached properties to which it is unnecessary to refer at this stage. Suffice it to say that the attachment as well as the right of the judgment-debtor to the properties attached were the subject-matter of these several proceedings which continued for a considerable time. On 26th January, 1942, the decree-holder applied in I.A. No. 103 of 1942 to the insolvency Court for permission to. execute the decree and this permission was accorded on 10th February, 1942 and in pursuance of this permission, he filed execution applications which, however, were dismissed on technical grounds, but were again restored to file and the present execution application was filed on 17th March, 1944.

One ground urged against this execution application is that it is barred by limitation. A contention was raised that as the application for execution was filed beyond 12 years from the date of the decree, this was barred under section 48 of the Civil Procedure Code for the reason that the limitation imposed by this provision operated as an absolute bar and that no application for execution, notwithstanding that the execution had been stayed, could be filed after the expiry of 12 years from the date of the decree. But this contention is no longer tenable since a Full Bench of this Court has held that section 48, Civil Procedure Code, is controlled and is subject to the exemption granted by section 15 of the Indian Limitation Act. This point having been disposed of, the judgment-debtor contended that the decree-holder could have moved the insolvency Court for obtaining the order of the stay passed under section 29 to be modified or vacated, that the bar imposed by the section is not absolute and that consequently section 15 of the Indian Limitation Act could not avail to give an extended period of limitation for the purpose of pursuing the proceedings in execution. The learned District Munsif upheld this contention of the judgment-debtor and dismissed the execution application. The decree-holder thereupon preferred an appeal to the District Court and the learned District Judge allowed the appeal and permitted the execution to proceed. It is against this order of the learned District Judge that this appeal had been preferred.

Section 15 of the Indian Limitation Act as now amended reads as follows:

“In computing the period of limitation prescribed for any suit or application for the execution of a decree, the institution or execution of which has been stayed by injunction or order, the time of the continuance of the injunction or order, the day on which it was issued or made and the day on which it was withdrawn, shall be excluded.”

Section 29 of the Provincial Insolvency Act under which the execution of the decree was stayed on application made by the j





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