Food Corporation of India vs The Loco Jalandhar Cooperative Labour and Construction Society Ltd.

S.S. Sodhi, J.—The challenge here is to an extraordinary order passed by the executing Court while dismissing the execution application of the decree-holder as fully satisfied, holding the judgment-debtor, who had claimed no definite amount either as set off or as counter claim nor had he paid any court-fee, entitled to recover a sum of almost Rs. 6 Lakhs from the decree-holder.

To give the relevant facts, the Food Corporation of India filed a suit against the Jalandhar Cooperative Labour and Construction Society, jalandhar, for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 46,000/- odd. This suit was decreed by the trial Court on October 3, 1985. The operative part of the judgment being as under :-

"In view of the statement of the parties and their counsel, the suit of the plaintiff is decreed with costs. The plaintiff will adjust the amount of pending bills of the defendant and their security in the decretal amount and if any balance is due to the defendant, the plaintiff will make payment thereof to the defendant without any delay. Decree-sheet be made and file be consigned."

After adjusting the amount received from the judgment-debtors, the decree-holder i.e. Food Corporation of India filed an application for execution of the decree against the judgment-debtors for the recovery of Rs. 27,000/- odd. The judgment-debtors, on their part, claimed that after adjusting the amounts due to them by the decree-holder, the decree-holder owed to them, in respect of their bills, a sum of Rs. 5,18,762.13 Paise. Interest was also claimed thereon at the rate of 12 per cent per annum which amounted to Rs. 1,09,658/-. In this manner a sum of Rs. 5,99,586/- was claimed by the judgment-debtors from the decree-bolder in execution of the decree. The finding recorded by the executing Court in the impugned order is to the effect that the claim of the Food Corporation of India stands fully satisfied while the judgment-debtors are entitled to recover from the Food Corporation of India a sum of Rs. 5,99,586/-.

What deserves pointed mention, at the very outset, is the fact that the judgment-debtors never claimed any definite amount either as set off or as counter claim and no court-fee was paid by them in respect of the claim put forth by them. No decree for any particular sum was sought. There was, thus, no occasion for any decree being passed in favour of the judgment-debtors of which they could claim execution. Such being the circumstances, the trial court clearly fell in error in branding the decree passed in the suit as a "preliminary decree" and converting itself thereafter virtually as a trial Court, then proceeding to pass a "Final decree", as it were. In doing so, it clearly assumed a jurisdiction not vested in it.

Looking to the decree itself, the undertaking of the Food Corporation of India contained therein, to pay to the judgment-debtors, after adjusting their bills, the balance, if any, did not thereby become an executable decree, at the instance of judgment-debtors, in the sense, that the Food Corporation of India could not thereunder be called upon to pay any amount unless such amount is claimed by the judgment-debtors, established and found to be due to the judgment-debtors by a proper Forum. Such Forum is clearly not the executing Court. In other words, it was not within the ambit of the jurisdiction of the executing Court to adjudicate upon the validity of the bills submitted by the judgment-debtors and proceed then to treat such balance as part of the decree, which could be executed by the judgment-debtors against the decree-holder.

Such being the state of affairs, the impugned order of the executing Court cannot obviously, be sustained and is consequently hereby quashed. The matter is accordingly remitted to the executing Court for fresh decision in according with law. This revision petition is accepted with costs. Counsel''s fee Rs. 500/-