Research › Browse › Judgment

Calcutta High Court · body

1901 DIGILAW 58 (CAL)

Baij Nath Lohea v. Binoyendra Nath Palit and Soshi Mohun Deb

1901-05-20

body1901
JUDGMENT 1. This appeal arises out or an application made by the Appellant under sec. 311, C. P. C., to the Court below to set aside a sale held in execution of a decree. The subject-matter of the sale was a decree held by the judgment-debtor upon a mortgage of certain immoveable property. 2. The appeal turns on the question whether the property sold was moveable or immoveable property. The contention before us was that it was immoveable property as entitling the purchaser, at all events, to a claim to bring immoveable property to sale. We have, however, little hesitation in holding that this is not so. If tested by the definition of "immoveable property" contained in the General Clauses Act, it is obvious that the decree which was the subject-matter of sale is incapable of being properly described as immoveable property : and we are borne out in this view by the decision of this Court in the case of Gous Mahomed v. Khawas Ali Khan I. L. R. 23 Cal. 450 (1896) where it was distinctly laid down by the learned Judges that a decree upon a mortgage bond can in no sense be regarded as immoveable property. This being so, the application under sec. 311 of the Code was incompetent, that section being confined in its operation to sales of immoveable property, while sec, 298 of the Code also prohibits the setting aside of a sale of moveable property on the ground of irregularity in the publishing or conducting of it. For the foregoing reasons we consider that the order of the Court below was correct and that the appeal must accordingly be dismissed with costs. 3. But we may notice that the attempt was made here, though the point certainly does not appear to have been seriously raised in the Court below, to bring the case within the provisions of sec. 244 of the Code by showing that the mode of attachment adopted by the lower Court was not in accordance with the provisions of sec. 273 of the Code. The force of that contention, assuming it to be open to the Appellant, would depend altogether on whether the decree in question was or was not a money decree in the sense of that section. 273 of the Code. The force of that contention, assuming it to be open to the Appellant, would depend altogether on whether the decree in question was or was not a money decree in the sense of that section. It has been expressly decided by this Court in the case of Macnaghten v. Surja Prasad Missra 4 C. W. N. xxxv (1899) that a decree upon a mortgage is not a money decree within the meaning of the section in question. We agree in that view and we think that accordingly the contention is unsustainable. 4. It was also raised that the Appellant had not received notice ; whether of the attachment of or of the proceedings in execution it is not easy to understand. If the notice required by the penultimate clause of sec. 273 be meant, such a notice would seem, supposing it to be material, to have been served upon him ; while that he had notice of the proceedings in execution is abundantly clear from the circumstance that he came in on several occasions in the Court below with applications relating to the postponement of the sale. Neither of these grounds, therefore, has, in our opinion, any force. The appeal, as I have said, must be dismissed with costs. We assess the hearing fee at 2 gold mohurs in respect of each of the Respondents.