Judgment :- 1. This appeal is from an order in execution (satisfying the definition of a decree in S.2 (2) of the Civil Procedure Code) made by the Subordinate Judge's Court, Kasaragod on 2711967 and the question is whether the appeal lies to this court or to the District Court, Tellicherry. The suit in which the decree under execution was made, was instituted on 16121954 in the Subordinate Judge's Court, Mangalore. Its valuation was, Rs. 5465/- and as the law then stood an appeal from any decree or order in the suit would have lain to the High Court-see S.13 of the Madras Civil Courts Act, 1873 before its amendment by Madras Act XVII of 1956. The suit was decreed by the Subordinate Judge's Court, Mangalore on 13 91956 and the area to which it relates having become part of this State on 1111956 on its formation by the States Reorganisation Act, and this court having become the High Court for the area, an appeal was filed in this court on 112 1957. The appeal was dismissed on 2311 1961 and execution was thereafter levied in the Subordinate Judge's Court, Kasaragod to which by then the business of the Subordinate Judge's Court, Mangalore, in respect of the area concerned, stood transferred. By the time the decree now under appeal was made, the Kerala Civil Courts Act, 1957 as also its amendment by Act 12 of 59 had come into force. Under S.13 of that Act, as amended, appeals from original decrees and orders of a Subordinate Judge's Court (as distinguished from appellate decrees or orders from which appeals, if they lie at all, lie to the High Court under the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code, and not as meaning, as counsel for the appellant contends, decrees and orders in original suits so that, from an order in execution, the appeal will lie to the High Court under S.12 of the Act even if, from the decree in the suit itself, the appeal lay only to the District Court under S.13) when the value of the subject-matter of the suit does not exceed Rs 10,000/- lie to the District Court. The question is whether this section expressly or by necessary intendment takes away the right of appeal to the High Court which vested in the appellant on the institution of the suit. 2.
The question is whether this section expressly or by necessary intendment takes away the right of appeal to the High Court which vested in the appellant on the institution of the suit. 2. I should think it does since the section, by sub-section (2) thereof, expressly states that its provisions shall apply to original decrees and orders of a Subordinate Judge's Court passed after the commencement of the amending Act of 1959 (and the decree, namely, the order in execution, now under appeal was made after that) notwithstanding that the suits in which such decrees and orders have been passed were instituted before that. Therefore, the section applies to the present case notwithstanding that the suit out of which it arises was instituted before the commencement of the amending Act. 3. In Ramunni Kurup v. Chiurtha 1959 KLJ. 1424 a division bench of this court invoked S.106 of the Code to make out jurisdiction in this court in what seems to be a similar case, but, as pointed out by another division bench in Narayanamoorthy Konar v. Viswanathan 1963 KLT. 471 that section can have no application to an order in execution which satisfies the definition of a decree in S.2 (2) of the Code and is thereof not an order as defined by S.2 (14). Moreover, I should think that when S.106 speaks of, "the Court to which an appeal would lie from the decree in the suit in which such order was made", it means the court to which such an appeal would lie at the time the appeal against the order is brought, irrespective of whether or not there has been a decree in the suit and where the appeal lay before that time. 4. There is, in this case, no such complication as the transfer of the suit from a higher to a lower court raising with it the question whether the right of appeal vested when the suit was instituted or when it was entertained by the court which actually heard it so that the forum of appeal is to be determined accordingly. It is therefore not necessary for me to reconcile the decision in Gopala Pillai v. Sayyed Muhammed 1965 KLJ. 636 with the decision in M. R. M. Sons v. Union of India 1960 KLT. 1327 or in Narayanamoorthy Konar v. Viswanathan 1963 KLT.
It is therefore not necessary for me to reconcile the decision in Gopala Pillai v. Sayyed Muhammed 1965 KLJ. 636 with the decision in M. R. M. Sons v. Union of India 1960 KLT. 1327 or in Narayanamoorthy Konar v. Viswanathan 1963 KLT. 471 though, with great respect, I am inclined to agree with the view taken in the first mentioned case that the right of appeal, and, with it the right to appeal to the particular forum, vests with the institution of the suit and therefore when the suit is brought and not when it is received by the transferee court. And no such absurdity as an appeal from a suit withdrawn from a Munsiff's Court and decreed by the High Court lying to the District Court as envisaged in M. R. M. Sons v. Union of India 1960 KLT. 1327 can conceivably arise since, under the statutes concerned, the forum of appeal is fixed with reference to the court which made the decree and not with reference to the court in which the suit was instituted, and none of them (whether repealed or in force) provides that an appeal from a decree made by the High Court lies to the District Court. In the case of a suit transferred from a District Court to a Subordinate Judge's Court, the question, I should imagine, will have to be answered with reference to sub-section (2) of S.13 of the Kerala Civil Courts Act, whether it means that the appeal lies to the District Court irrespective of the court in which the suit was instituted. 5. Return the memorandum of appeal for presentation to the proper court.