JUDGMENT :

Stanley, J.:—

A question under section 295 of the Civil Procedure Code is involved in this appeal. The plaintiff obtained a decree against one Shiam Lal and others on the 24th of December, 1898. The defendants had obtained a decree against the same parties two days previously. On the 26th of January, 1900, the plaintiff applied for execution of his decree and for the attachment thereunder of five houses and two plots of land, and this application was granted. Subsequently, the defendants applied for execution of their decree, and the same property was attached. The plaintiff appears to have made two applications for execution of his decree, but nothing was done under these applications. The defendants then applied for sale of the property, in pursuance of their attachment, and got an order for sale, and thereupon, on the 30th of October, 1900, the plaintiff applied, under the provisions of section 295, to the Court, for a ratable distribution of the money to be realized by that sale. The sale took place on the 31st of October, and was confirmed on the 4th of January, 1901. The plaintiff then made a fresh application for ratable distribution on the 19th of January, 1901, which was rejected. This application appears to us to have been entirely unnecessary except as a reminder to the Court the fact that the applicant was also a decree-holder, and that he had already made an application under section 295 on the 30th of October, 1900. The application was refused, and all the sale proceeds were paid to the defendants-respondents here. Thereupon the present suit was instituted to recover Rs. 1,000, moneys realized out of the sale, which are stated to be the ratable share to which the plaintiff is entitled.

2. The Munsif gave a decree in favour of the plaintiff, but on appeal the District Judge set aside the decree of the Munsif and dismissed the plaintiff's suit on the ground that the application for ratable distribution made on the 19th of January, 1901, was subsequent to the sale, and was therefore too late, and also on the ground that his previous application made on the 30th of October, 1900, was ineffectual because it was made in the course of proceedings in execution of the plaintiff's own decree and not in the execution proceedings in the suit of the defendants-respondents, in execution of which the money was realized. The learned District Judge says:— “With regard to his former application, which was dated 30th October, 1900, and which was made in the course of the proceedings in execution of his own decree, I hold that that can have no effect in the matter, as it was made under circumstances which are not within the knowledge of the appellants, and the appellants were not in a position to object thereto or to modify their course of action in consequence of the same. To hold otherwise might cause grave hardship. To take the case of a decree-holder who had attached only such property as was necessary to satisfy his own decree. According to my view of the law, if another decree-holder wished to share in the distribution of the sale proceeds of this property, he would have to put in an application for such distribution to the knowledge of the first decree-holder before the property was sold, and if the property in question were insufficient to satisfy both decrees, the first decree-holder would be in a position to attach more property before the sale,” and so forth. We are wholly unable to agree with the learned District Judge in his view of the law, He puts restrictions upon the rights of decree-holders which are not to be found in the section in question. In order that a decree-holder may be entitled to a ratable distribution under this section, the following conditions must exist; two or more decree-holders must be holders of decrees for money against the same judgment-debtor; the decree-holder seeking ratable distribution must, prior to the realization, have applied to the Court by which the assets are held for exe