This second appeal raises a very interesting point of law, namely, whether a judgment-debtor husband in a maintenance

decree, after having been committed to a civil prison for six months, in an execution petition for recovering the movables

and costs, and been there for the entire period prescribed in section 58(1), Civil Procedure Code, can, in another

execution for recovering the maintenance which had accrued by then, be again sent to the civil prison for another period

of six months, and so on and so forth, for recurring periods of six months for recurring maintenance amounts for later

periods. The trial Court held that he can be so sent if he having means to pay the maintenance amount, refuses to pay,

but confessed that the matter was not free from doubt, and gave the judgment-debtor some time to pay up before

ordering his arrest again. On appeal, by the judgment-debtor, the District Judge of Mathurai held that a maintenance

decree cannot be held to be a different decree in respect of each matter adjudicated in it, for the purpose of re-arrest

and committal to civil prison under section 58 (1) and 58 (2), Civil Procedure Code, distinguishing the rulings in Harak

Narain Singh v. Babban1,and Mt. Prem Kuer v. Ram Lagan Rai2, as not applicable to arrests at all. He relied on the

ruling in Damodar Shaligram v. Malhari3, and the plain wording of section 58 (2), Civil Procedure Code and held that

once the judgment-debtor has been arrested and detained in civil prison for the full period of six months mentioned in

section 58, Civil Procedure Code,in execution of a maintenance decree, he is not liable to be arrested again in execution

of the same decree though for an amount due under a different head in the decree. He relied most strongly on the clause:

“But he shall not be liable to be re-arrested under the decree in execution of which he was detained in the civil prison”.

in section 58 (2), Civil Procedure Code, and held that the judgment-debtor was not liable to be arrested again and

committed to jail for this maintenance amount accruing after he had been previously arrested and committed to jail.

Mr.T.S. Vaidyanatha Ayyar, for the maintenance-holder wife, urged that the learned District Judge’s view was wrong

and unsustainable in law and that it virtully condemned the wife to death by starvation by the husband’s abuse of law.

He urged that a maintenance decree is a composite decree and that every time the decree-holder is proceeding by way

of execution it is a fresh decree that is being put in execution, as held in Debendranath v. Trinayani Dasi1, and that,

therefore, a judgment-debtor husband can be sent to civil jail for six months at a time, for every maintenance amount

above Rs. 50 accruing for each period, and that as the first arrest and committal were for the value of the movables and

costs awarded to the appellant, and the re-arrest was applied for the first maintenance amount due the case for re-arrest

was even stronger. I cannot agree. I have no doubt whatever that the learned District Judge was right in his view in the

circumstances of this case, as the re-arrest was being asked for:

“Under the decree in execution of which he was detained in the civil prison”

within the meaning of section 58 (2), Civil Procedure Code. If any man, layman or lawyer is asked, he will have

certainly to reply that the re-arrest was being asked for only in execution of the decree in O.S.No. 313 of 1946, though

under a different branch of it. The tree was the same. So, when section 58 (2), Civil Procedure Code cut the trunk at

the root, all the branches fell down automatically with it, and no re-arrest was possible. Of course, the debt and the

liability for maintenance remain, under section 58 (2), Civil Procedure Code, itself, despite the release after a six months

period in the civil prison, and can be recovered by other methods, like proceeding against the charged properties, and

other properties of the judgment-debtor. Sending a ju