S. Harnam Singh Gurmukh Singh vs Ramji Das Pohlu Mal and Another

Kapur, J.—This is judgment-debtor''s appeal against an order passed in appeal by the learned District Judge of Ludhiana affirming the order passed in execution by the Executing Court.

Ramji Dass Respondent obtained a consent decree for Rs. 2500 against S. Harnam Singh on 17-8-1936. This amount was payable in ten years by equal half yearly instalments and if two consecutive instalments were not paid the entire money became payable at once and the jagir which is the subject-matter of the present appeal could be attached. Default having occurred, on 25-3-1942 the decree-holder took out execution with the prayer that the jagir money accruing from the Hari crop should be attached and that the jagir money which the judgment-debtor had withdrawn should be got refunded. The judgment-debtor raised the plea that the jagir being political pension could not be attached in execution of the decree u/s 60(1)(g), Code of Civil Procedure. Several issues were raised which are not necessary for the purposes of this appeal and the executing Court overruled the objections holding that jagir money was not a political pension within the provisions of Section 60(1)(g), Code of Civil Procedure, that the objection which was being taken in the executing Court had been waived under the compromise referred to above, that the executing Court could not go behind the decree and that the money which had been withdrawn had to be refunded. An appeal was taken against this order to the learned District Judge before whom evidently the only point for decision was whether this jagir was covered by Section 60(1)(g), Code of Civil Procedure, and no other point was agitated.

The judgment-debtor has come up in appeal and has submitted that the jagir is a political pension and, therefore, is exempted from attachment and sale u/s 60(1)(g), Code of Civil Procedure, and he further submits that if this point is found in his favour then neither can the jagir be attached nor can he be called upon to refund the jagir money which he has already withdrawn.

In order to determine the nature of this jagir we have to find out what is the history behind it. The Appellant is a jagirdar of Jaboo Muzara in Ludhiana District. In Aitchison''s Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, vol. I, at p. 29 is given a list of the principal Cis-Sutlej jagirs under the heading Minor Cis-Sutlej Chiefs and this jagir is shown at No. 10 in this list. It is said at p. 28:

When the minor Cis-Sutlej Chiefs were deprived of their sovereign powers, the police management of their estates was assumed by the British Government all customs duties were abolished without compensation, and the Chiefs were reduced to the rank of ordinary jagirdars.

At p. 29 is given a statement of the principal Cis-Sutlej jagirs, showing their annual revenue and the amount of tribute paid to the British Government. Some of them are held by individual Chiefs, others by clans in which the individual shares are sub-divided into very small fractions.... The revenue of this family is shown as Rs. 13.872, and the commutation Rs. 1652. There were several privileges which were left intact and others were taken away.

In the District Gazetteers of Ludhiana District at p. 78 it is stated under the heading ''Leading Families'':

The founders of the Jabu Mazara family were Raj Singh and Ram Singh, Jats (got Kang) from Amritsar. They secured 16 villages to the south-west of Khanna, but were exposed to constant attacks from Patiala and the Kapurthala chiefs, who finally annexed and divided the whole estate. The Sirdars complained to the Resident at Ambala and eight villages were restored to the family. These they now hold with revenue of Rs. 10,755.

In the Punjab Land Administration Manual para. 102, Sir James Douie has described the peculiar status of Cis-Sutlej jagirdars. He says:

The jagirs in the Cis-Sutlej States are not the gift of the British Government, as are those in the part or the Punjab which was annexed after the second Sikh War. Nor do they stand on the same footing as the conguest jagirs in the tract between the Beas and the Sutlej.... But the Sikhs in the Cis-Sutlej States whom we transformed into jagirdars in 1847, however petty their individual holdings might be, were in theory, and to a large extent in practice, independent rulers, whose ancestors had come under our protection in 1809 with a guarantee that they would ''remain in the exercise of the same rights and authority'' which they had hitherto enjoyed.... In a sense then the Cis-Sutlej jagirdars, great and small, are mediatized rulers, and, little though they have as a body deserved at our hands, this fact should not be lost sight of in our dealings with them.

Mr. Tek Chand has drawn my attention to certain unreported judgments of this Court and of the Lahore High Court which he submits have a bearing on the question now before me. R.S.A. 61 of 1946 decided by Mahajan and Teja Singh, JJ., only held that so far as Cis-Sutlej jagirs were concerned the lands that were situated within the original dominions of these jagirdars when they were rulers could not be alienated and the nature of the tenure of the holder for the time being was a limited one. Reference is there made to R.S.A. Nos. 1128 and 1129 of 1942 and R.S.A. 394 of 1944. But I am unable to draw any very great assistance to decide the question which is now before me.

In Achhru Mal v. Balwant Singh I.L.R (1937) Lah. 415: AIR 1937 Lah. 178, a judgment on which Mr. Tek Chand relies, is of some importance in deciding the question before me. There assignment of land revenue was held to fall within the definition of the word ''pensions''. Ancestors of the jagirdars exercised sovereign powers in the locality in which they resided and were granted the right to realiae tend revenue in view of their relinquishment of the sovereign rights. This privilege was conferred upon them with a view to retain their alliance or good-will or to claim their assistance when needed. A reference to para 102 of Douie''s Administration Manual, which I have referred to above, shows that the Sirdars of the Cis-sutlej States were transformed into jagirdars in 1847 and thereby they became mediatized rulers. This being the position of the family of the judgment-debtor the jagir that he is getting would be covered by the word ''political pensions'' and would, therefore, be exempt from attachment and sale.

In Karar Hassan v. Mustafa Hassan 86 P.R. 1914: AIR 1914, Lah. 315, grant of land revenue which was previously partly in perpetuity and partly for life was made wholly a perpetual grant for the future and payable by the assignment of the land evenue assessed on certain villages was held to be a political pension as it was made for political service. This judgment was followed in Achhru Mal v. Balwant Singh ILR (1937) Lah. 415: AIR 1937 Lah. 178, which has bean quoted above. I am therefore of the opinion that the jagir given to the judgment-debtor is a political pension within the meaning of Section 60(1)(g), Code of Civil Procedure, and is exempt from attachment and sale.

The executing Court held that the judgment-debtor had waived the protection which Section 60(1)(g) of the Code gave him. The Appellant submitted that Section 60(1) is mandatory and is based on consideration of public policy, and, therefore, it was not open to the judgment debtor to waive the protection which the statute s gives him and the agreement or the compromise which has that effect is not enforceable in law and is, therefore, void. He relied on Prem Parkash v. Mohan Lal AIR 1943 Lah. 268 : I.L.R, (1944) Lah. 379 F.B. where it was held that an executing Court could go behind a compromise decree and determine wherever it was unexecutable on account of contravening the provisions of Section 60, Code of Civil Procedure. I must hold that there is force in this contention, and, therefore, the learned executing Court was in error in holding that the judgment-debtor could waive the protection which the law gives him. That being the case, his finding that the Court could not go behind the decree in this case would also be erroneous and so also his findings on issues 2 to 5 which are all based on this erroneous interpretation of that law that there could be a waiver of the protection u/s 60, Code of Civil Procedure.

On these findings, in my opinion, it should have been held that the jagir money was not attachable or saleable in Execution of the Respondent''s decree because of the bar of Section 60(1)(g).

In the result, therefore, this appeal must succeed. The judgment-debtor will have his costs in this Court and in the Court''s below.