Mode of Execution and Stay of Execution

In one line

Section 51 lists the five ways a decree can be enforced, and the proviso to it is the reason a person is very rarely sent to prison for a debt.

Why the Code lists the modes

A decree can be for many things: money, possession of land, delivery of goods, an injunction, specific performance. Each needs a different instrument. So the Code sets out a menu and leaves the choice, in the first instance, to the decree-holder, who applies for the mode he wants under Order XXI Rule 11(2).

But the Code does not leave the choice entirely to him. Imprisonment is on the menu, and the Code hedges it with conditions so severe that it becomes the exception. That is deliberate: a civil decree is about recovering money, not punishing poverty.

The five modes: section 51

Section 51: subject to such conditions and limitations as may be prescribed, the Court may, on the application of the decree-holder, order execution of the decree:

(a) by delivery of any property specifically decreed (b) by attachment and sale, or by the sale without attachment, of any property (c) by arrest and detention in prison for such period not exceeding the period specified in section 58, where arrest and detention is permissible under that section (d) by appointing a receiver (e) in such other manner as the nature of the relief granted may require

Clause (e) is the residuary provision, and it is what allows the Code to cope with decrees the draftsman did not anticipate. Clause (d) connects this chapter to [Appointment of Receivers], Order XL.

The proviso: when a judgment-debtor may be imprisoned

This is the most examined part of section 51 and the answer must reproduce its structure.

Where the decree is for the payment of money, execution by detention in prison shall not be ordered unless, after giving the judgment-debtor an opportunity of showing cause why he should not be committed to prison, the Court, for reasons recorded in writing, is satisfied of one of three things:

(a) that the judgment-debtor, with the object or effect of obstructing or delaying the execution of the decree, (i) is likely to abscond or leave the local limits of the Court's jurisdiction, or (ii) has, after the institution of the suit, dishonestly transferred, concealed or removed any part of his property, or committed any other act of bad faith in relation to his property; or

(b) that the judgment-debtor has, or has had since the date of the decree, the means to pay the amount of the decree or some substantial part of it, and refuses or neglects, or has refused or neglected, to pay it; or