Govinda Menon, J.-Exhibit B-2 is an indenture between the Governor-General-in-Council and the appellant herein by which the appellant has been made the lessee of certain salt pans in Tirunelveli district. For the purpose of procuring the lease as well as the payment of the rents due, the appellant borrowed large sums of money from the respondent, as a result of which the respondent filed O.S.No.42 of 1947, on the file of the Subordinate Judge’s Court of Tuticorin for the recovery of Rs.1,08,229-9-8 with interest, etc., from the appellant personally and by enforcement of a charge on all the salt manufactured and gathered in the salt pans. On the 24th June, 1949, a compromise decree was passed which provided the payment of the decree amount which was settled at Rs.90,000 by various instalments. Paragraph 4 stated that if there be any default in respect of payment of even one instalment as described in paragraph 1 of the compromise decree, the plaintiff (respondent) shall automatically be the receiver of the salt pans for the purpose of realising the decree amount as per paragraph 2 of the compromise decree and that the plaintiff shall be entitled to enter into and be in possession of the pans till the decree amount is wiped off. Paragraph 5 provided that the plaintiff was also entitled to enforce the charge that he has on the pans and the salt therein by means of executing the decree according to law. As default was made in the payment of instalments, an application was made for execution of the decree and realisation of the amount by the appointment of a receiver as contemplated in paragraph 4 of the compromise decree as well as by the sale of the salt pans in pursuance of the charge created in the compromise decree. Various objections were raised by the judgment-debtor appellant to the reliefs asked for hut the learned Subordinate Judge overruled all of them. Against the automatic provision by which the respondent became receiver of the salt pans, C.M.A.No.462 of 1950 was filed along with the present appeal but at the time of the hearing, Mr. V. Ramaswami Aiyar for the appellant did not seriously question the validity of the order and therefore that appeal has been dismissed. The present appeal is against the order of the Subordinate Judge by which the salt pans were ordered to be sold in execution. The learned Judge held that though the rules under the Salt Act prevent the licensee from assigning, sub-letting, or alienating on pain of termination of the lease, the sale is not ab initio void but if the Commissioner, subsequent to the sale, accepts the sale as valid, the purchaser gets a title. In the present case, since that contingency has not yet arisen, the learned Judge held that the sale is not prohibited and therefore overruling the objection of the appellant, directed a settlement of proclamation and for fixing the upset price.

The main argument of Mr. V. Ramaswami Aiyar for the appellant is founded upon the Full Bench decision to which one of us was a party reported in Velu v. Sivasooriam1. In that case it was held that a partnership entered into for the purpose of conducting a business in arrack or toddy on a licence granted, or to be granted, only to one of the persons is void ab initio, whether the contract of partnership was entered into before the licence was granted or afterwards. It was further held that such a partnership involves a transfer of the licence which is prohibited under clause (a) of rule 27 of the General Sales Notification issued under the Madras Abkari Act (I of 1886) and is punishable under section 56 of the Act, or a breach of section 15 of the Act, punishable under section 55, and that such a partnership would be illegal, either because an offence would necessarily be committed in pursuance of it or because it would be against the general public policy underlying the enactment that only approved persons, specifically licensed, should be allowed to sell liquor. The prohibition against the transf

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