Rajamannar, C.J. - This second appeal came on before Krishnaswami Nayudu, J., who suggested that the appeal might

be heard by a Bench, as it involved an important question of law. It arises out of a suit filed by the respondents in the

following circumstances. One Subramania Mudaliar, the husband of the 1st respondent and the father of the 2nd

respondent filed a suit O.S.No.83 of 1940 in the Court of the District Munsif of Ranipet against the 2nd defendant and

others. He applied for an order of attachment before judgment of the properties belonging to the 2nd defendant. The

attachment was ordered and made absolute on 7th December, 1940. A preliminary decree was passed in the suit,

which was for dissolution of a partnership and the taking of accounts, on 31st October, 1942. On 30th August, 1943,

the suit was dismissed against the present 2nd defendant and another defendant. There was an appeal against this order

of dismissal, which was allowed on 1st August, 1944, and the suit was remanded as against the 2nd defendant. It was

during this interval, on 20th January, 1944, that the property in suit was purchased by the present 1st defendant from the

2nd defendant. Eventually, a revised final decree was passed on 24th October, 1945, which made the 2nd defendant

also liable. A petition to execute this decree was filed in 1946, E.P.No.37 of 1946. That was dismissed on 27th April,

1946, because the decree-holder was dead. Subsequently, the legal representatives of the deceased decree-holder,

Subramania Mudaliar, namely, the present plaintiffs filed E.P.No.351 of 1946. The 1st defendant intervened with a

claim petition, E.A.No.117 of 1947. His claim was based on the purchase he had made on 20th January, 1944. This

petition was allowed on 17th July, 1947. On 16th July, 1948, the suit out of which this appeal arises was instituted. The

relief prayed for was the setting aside of the order passed in E.A.No.117 of 1947. The ground on which the plaintiffs

attacked the order passed on the claim petition of the 1st defendant was that the original attachment which had been

made absolute on 7th December, 1940, continued to be in force, because of the subsequent order passed by the

appellate Court on 1st August, 1944, and that even if the original attachment ceased to be in effect when the suit was

dismissed on 30th August, 1943, against the 2nd defendant, the attachment revived by the order of remand passed by

the appellate Court. It was further alleged by the plaintiffs that the order dismissing E.P.No.37 of 1946 did not have the

effect of terminating the attachment, particularly because at that time the decree-holder himself was dead and his legal

representatives had not come on record. In addition to these allegations based upon the continuance of the attachment,

the plaintiffs also alleged in paragraph 9 of the plaint that the sale in favour of the 1st defendant was not a bona fide but a

fraudulent transaction nominally got up with a view to defraud the plaintiffs and their decree. In paragraph 12, the

plaintiffs stated that they were filing the suit in a representative capacity on behalf of all the creditors under section 53 of

the Transfer of Property Act, and in paragraph 13 that the alienation by the 2nd defendant was secretly to benefit

himself and delay his creditors. When the suit came on for trial before the learned Subordinate Judge of Vellore, learned

counsel for the plaintiffs gave up the case as put forward by the plaintiffs in the plaint that the alienation in favour of the

1st defendant fell within section 53 of the Transfer of Property Act. The suit thereafter was confined to an attack on the

validity of the purchase made by the 1st defendant by reason of the subsistence of the attachment originally ordered on

7th December, 1940. The 1st defendant inter alia contended that the suit itself was not maintainable because the remedy

of the plaintiffs was by way of an appeal under section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure, inasmuch

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