The main legal principle established in the judgment is that the order of attachment under Section 268 of the Code of Civil Procedure does not confer title or create a charge or lien in favor of the attaching creditor, emphasizing the principle of treating creditors pari passu and the requirement of actual realization of debt to establish priority.

1. This is an appeal from an order of Boddam, J., allowing the claim of the Official Assignee of the estate of one Raghavalu Naidu, an insolvent, as against an attaching creditor of the insolvent. The material dates are these: On February 6th, 1900, the creditor obtained an order under Section 483 of the Code of Civil Procedure attaching before judgment, a sum of Rs. 40,000 which had been deposited with Messrs. Parry & Co. by the insolvent as security for the performance of his duties as a dubash, and a further order under Section 268 of the Code of Civil Procedure restraining the insolvent from receiving this sum of Rs. 40,000 from Messrs. Parry & Co., and restraining Messrs. Parry & Co. from paying it to the insolvent. On July 25th, 1900, the creditor obtained a decree against the insolvent for Rs. 12.000 odd. On February 18th, 1901, an order of adjudication in insolvency was made on the petition of the insolvent, and an order was subsequently made under Section 7 of the Insolvency Act, vesting his estate in the Official Assignee. Section 490 of the Code of C.P.C. provides that where property is attached before judgment, and a decree is given in favour of the plaintiff, it is not necessary to re-attach the property in execution of the decree. The case therefore stands upon the same footing as if the creditor had obtained his decree and had afterwards obtained an order of attachment before the adjudication. The question for determination isdoes the order of attachment operate so as to give the attaching creditor priority over the other creditors in the insolvency? In one sense, no doubt, the process of attachment is complete that is, the creditor has done all that the Code requires him to do to give him the rights of an attaching creditor. In the sense in which, for the purposes of the present English Bankruptcy Law, an attachment is deemed to be complete so as to give the attaching creditor a good title as against a trustee in bankruptcy, the attachment is not complete. Under Section 45 of the* Bankruptcy Act, 1883, the attachment of a debt is only completed by the receipt of the debt. On behalf of the attaching creditor, reliance was placed upon the II decision of the Court of Appeal in Ex-parte Joselyne, In re Watt 8 Ch. D. 327 where it was held that a judgment-creditor had obtained a garnishee order nisi attaching debts due to the judgment-debtor, before the filing of a liquidation petition was a secured creditor within Section 16(3) of the Act of 1869, land his title to the attached debts prevailed over that of the trustee. The law as laid down in the case referred to was altered by the Act of 1883, and it may be observed that the English Act of 1849 and most of the bankruptcy statutes prior to that of 1869 contained a provision which deprived execution creditors of the benefit of their execution if they had not realized by seizure and sale before the adjudication. See Williams on Bankruptoy. Edition 6, page 45. The English decisions, however, are only useful by way of analogy. The question really has to be decided with reference to the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and of the Insolvency Act which is in force in this country (11 and 12 Vict. Ch, 21). First, it is to be observed that there is nothing in any of the provisions of the Code, which, in terms, makes the attaching creditor a secured creditor, or any charge or lien in his favour over the property attached. The order of attachment merely restrains the debtors creditor from paying to the debtor, the money attached, and restrains the debtor from receiving the same. See form 139 of Schedule IV of the Code of Civil Procedure.

2. The order does not purport to deal with any question of title as between the debtor and the party in whose hands the debt alleged to be due to the debtor is attached, or as between the debtor and any party in whom his estate may afterwards become vested by operation of law. In other words, attachment prevents alienation; it