Karuppanda Goundar and Another vs V.C.T.N. Chidambaram Chettiar and Another

Cornish, J.—The appellants are the sureties upon a bond given by them to the Court in pursuance of the provision in Section 55 (4), Civil

Procedure Code.

The respondent, a decree-holder having arrested his judgment-debtor, that person expressed his intention of taking life benefit of the Insolvency

Act, the decree debt feeing for Rs. 2,000. Accordingly the appellants entered into a bond whereby they undertook to produce the debtor before

the Court whenever directed.

To cause him to file an insolvency petition within one month from that date, and to get him to prosecute it to its very end and also to produces him

in the meantime.

In short, the bond appears to have been so framed as to carry into effect the purpose for which security can be required by the Court u/s 55

(4), namely, to ensure that a debtor who, on his arrest, and in order to be released from arrest expresses an intention to apply to be declared an

insolvent shall carry out that intention. It so happened that the debtor presented his Insolvency Petition and was duly adjudicated an insolvent. But

failing to apply for his discharge within the prescribed time his insolvency has been annulled. In these circumstances the decree-holder has sought to

make the sureties liable, and both the lower Courts have enforced this liability. The construction which the lower Courts have put upon the bond is

that it ensured the proper conduct of the insolvency up to the final discharge. In my judgment this is to put an undue and unnatural strain upon the

language of the bond. The undertaking was that the debtor should, prosecute the insolvency petition to its very end. The plain meaning of that I

think is that the debtor was to prosecute his insolvency petition until is termination which might be its dismissal by the Court u/s 25 or an order of

adjudication made by the Court u/s 27. These were the only two ends for the debtor''s insolvency petition. The sureties might have extended their

liability beyond that point, as they did in the case reported in Kandaswami Chettiar Vs. A.R.M. Annamalai Chettiar, . But they have not done so in

the present case, and having regard to the object contemplated by Section 55 (4) of the Civil Procedure Code, there was no necessity for them to

do so. In my judgment, therefore, the liability undertaken by the-sureties upon the present bond was satisfied by the adjudication of the judgment-

debtor upon his petition. It follows that the lower Court''s order must be set aside and this appeal is allowed with costs throughout.