JUDGMENT

Ajaib Singh J

This was an application by the garnishees to set aside a garnishment notice and a garnishee summons issued and served on them at the instance of the judgment creditors. The grounds on which they sought to set aside the aforesaid notice and summons were that the garnishees had no debts owing or accruing from them to the judgment debtors, that the judgment debtors were not beneficially entitled to any attachable property which may come under the control of the garnishees and that the garnishees had no property of the judgment debtors in their custody or control.

The facts leading to the present application were as follows. The judgment creditors had sued the judgment debtors as the administratrix and administrator of the estate of Gurcharan Singh (deceased) for a sum of $8,028.18 under a hire-purchase agreement made between the judgment creditors and the deceased in respect of a motor vehicle. Subsequently a consent judgment for this sum was entered against the judgment debtors on May 9, 1977. Earlier in 1974 the judgment debtors had retained the garnishees who are a firm of advocates and solicitors to obtain Letters of Administration and these were granted to them on December 13, 1976. A sum of $55,344.85 due to the deceased's estate from Malaysian Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd. was thereafter paid to the garnishees who in turn had the sum deposited in Bank Buruh on February 25, 1977 in an account opened for the estate. An undated garnishment notice was served on the garnishees on January 2, 1979 followed by a garnishee summons dated April 13, 1979 which was served on the garnishees on May 3, 1979.

In their affidavit in support the garnishees contended that the garnishment notice should be set aside as it was undated and that both the notice and the garnishee summons should be set aside on the ground that the garnishees had no money or attachable property in their possession, custody or control. It was said that the only attachable property which may come into their hands would be the assets of the deceased and these would be subject to distribution to the beneficiaries of the estate of the deceased.

The court has jurisdiction to set aside a garnishment notice or a garnishee summons but it should in my view do so only on being satisfied by cogent evidence that such notice or summons was not issued bona fide and that the issue thereof was an abuse of the process of the court. Garnishee proceedings are after all regulated by Order 43 rule 5 and Order 45 of the Rules of the Supreme court so that strong and valid reasons must be shown why the relevant procedure should not be followed as a matter of course.

In the present case the garnishees failed to show why the procedure as set out in the rules relating to garnishee proceedings should not be adhered to and they also failed to show that they were not answerable to the garnishment notice or the garnishee summons. In their affidavit the garnishees stated that there was no debt owing or accruing from them to the judgment debtors. They also held the belief that no attachable property would come into their hands but added that the only attachable property which might come into their hands would be the assets of the deceased on distribution. Thus although the garnishees had asserted positively that there was no debt owing or accruing from them to the judgment debtors they were not in a position to say categorically that no other attachable property belonging to the judgment debtors would come into their hands. On the contrary they were conceding that on a distribution of the assets of the deceased they would have in their custody or control attachable property to which the judgment debtors would be beneficially entitled. The judgment debtors who are the administratrix and administrator of the estate of the deceased are described in the Grant of Letters of Administration as the widow and brother-in-law respectively of the deceased. Therefore the widow at any rate is