AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
In this case the Collector made the prior attachment under the provisions of the Madras Abkari Act I of 1886, Section 28. The lands were
subsequently attached by a private creditor and sold in execution. The question is whether the property passed to the purchaser subject to the
liability to be sold under the attachment previously made by the Collector.
The learned pleader contends that the terms of Section 28 of the Abkari Act do not extend the provision of Section 2, Madras Act II of 1864,
to sales for arrears of abkari revenue, and that since the Revenue Recovery Act does not prohibit alienation after attachment, the attachment made
by the Collector is absolutely void either against a private alienation or against a subsequent attachment in execution of a Court-decree. If this
contention be valid, it would follow that the Crown would be in a worse position than any private creditor, even though making the first attachment,
since it could not even claim rateable distribution u/s 295, Code of Civil Procedure, because the attachment made by it, though made under the
provisions of the law, was not made in execution of a decree for money.
We cannot accede to the contention. The attachment made by the Collector did undoubtedly render the property subject to be sold u/s 28 of
the Abkari Act, and the creditors who subsequently attached in execution of a Court-decree could not attach a larger interest than then belonged
to his judgment-debtor. That interest was subject to the liability which had been legally imposed in due course of law and the purchaser could take
no more. The principle of the decision in Subramanya v. Rajaram ILR 8 Mad. 573 applies. This is not a case of competition between different
decree-holders under the Civil Procedure Code.
In this view it is not necessary to consider the wider question as to whether as a Crown debt the Collector''s claim would have precedence.