The interpretation of Sections 37, 38, and 150 of the Civil Procedure Code was central to the Court's decision, allowing the Chidambaram Munsifs Court to exercise jurisdiction over the application for execution despite the transfer of the suit and the abolition of the Mannargudi Court.

Krishnan Pandalai, J.

1. This petition raises an interesting and uncommon question. When a suit for money is transferred from the Court where it is instituted to another Court beyond that jurisdiction and a decree is obtained in that Court and then the second Court is abolished and the whole business of that Court is sent by administrative order to a third Court, has that (third) Court jurisdiction to entertain a petition for sending the decree for execution to the first Court or must the petition for execution be presented in the first instance to the first Court?

2. The facts are as follows: The suit, O.S. No. 179 of 1922. which was for money on a promissory note, was filed in the Vriddachalam Munsifs Court by two minor plaintiffs represented by their mother as next friend and was transferred for disposal to the Mannargudi Munsifs Court and there numbered as O.S. No. 633 of 1923 and a decree was passed against the petitioner-defendant. Subsequent to the decree the Munsifs Court of Mannargudi was abolished and its territorial jurisdiction and business were added to that of the Chidambaram Munsifs Court. After the 1st plaintiff became a major after decree, he and his mother quarrelled and separate petitions for execution one by the 1st plaintiff for himself and purporting to act as next friend of 2nd plaintiff and another by his mother as next friend of the 2nd plaintiff were filed in the Chidambaram Court. In the course of these disputes as to who was entitled to execute the decree, the 1st plaintiff stated that the whole decree was dischared by payment to himself. This was disbelieved by the Court as collusive and the 1st plaintiff was removed from the office of next friend of 2nd plaintiff and the mother appointed instead. At this stage the judgment-debtor raised the objection that the Chidambaram Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the mothers petition which was to transmit the decree for execution to the Vriddachalam Court. The objection was based on the ground that the Mannargudi Munsifs Court having been abolished and ceased to exist, the only Court which could execute the decree is, according to Section 37 (b) of the Civil Procedure Code, the Court where the suit would have to be brought if the suit were brought at the date of the application which is admittedly the Vriddachalam Court as the defendant lives and the cause of action arose in that jurisdiction. The objection was overruled by the District Munsif on the ground, as I understand it, that Section 37 (b) is not applicable to the case and that the Chidambaram Court having succeeded to the business of the Mannargudi Court, the former Court is entitled under Section 150 to do what the Mannargudi Court, if not abolished, might have done, i.e., to transmit the decree for execution and decide all things necessary to be decided before it is transmitted.

3. The Sections 37, 38 and 150 of the Civil Procedure Code on which this question depends have been the occasion of so many decisions that it is curious that the learned Advocates have not been able to bring to my notice any case like the present where the suit or the decree is one for a simple money debt without the security of Immovable property. The questions which have hitherto been the subject of decision arise where after suit and before execution, the territorial jurisdiction over the Immovable property concerned has been changed either because the Trial Court being abolished its territorial jurisdiction has been merged in other Courts, or because such Court being still in existence its territorial jurisdiction over the property has been wholly or partially conferred on other Courts. In such cases it is now held that where the Trial Court still exists, it has jurisdiction at least to entertain applications for transmitting the decree to the Court to which jurisdiction over the property concerned has been transferred. In Sivaskanda Raju v. Raja of Jeypore I.L.R. (1927) 50 M. 882 : 52 M.L.J. 605 the decisi