Questions to be Determined by the Executing Court

In one line

Every dispute about executing, discharging or satisfying a decree is decided by the executing court itself, and not by a separate suit.

Why the Code forbids a separate suit

Without section 47 a judgment-debtor could answer every step of execution with a fresh suit. Attachment could be met with a suit for a declaration that the decree was satisfied; a sale could be met with a suit about who was entitled to the property. Each new suit would take years, and a decree would become a licence to litigate rather than a way of ending litigation.

So the Code concentrates all of it in one place: the court that is executing. That court is already seised of the matter, it has the record, and it can decide the point in the execution proceeding itself.

The provision is therefore a bar on one thing and a grant of jurisdiction over the same thing. It is worth saying both halves in an answer.

The provision

Section 47(1): all questions arising between the parties to the suit in which the decree was passed, or their representatives, and relating to the execution, discharge or satisfaction of the decree, shall be determined by the Court executing the decree and not by a separate suit.

Section 47(3): where a question arises as to whether any person is or is not the representative of a party, that question shall, for the purposes of the section, be determined by the Court.

Explanation I: for the purposes of the section, a plaintiff whose suit has been dismissed, and a defendant against whom a suit has been dismissed, are parties to the suit.

Explanation II: (a) a purchaser of property at a sale in execution of a decree shall be deemed to be a party to the suit in which the decree was passed; and (b) all questions relating to the delivery of possession of that property to that purchaser or his representative shall be deemed to be questions relating to the execution, discharge or satisfaction of the decree.

Note: Explanation II has been omitted in Uttar Pradesh by a State amendment. It is in force here, and it is the one that brings the auction purchaser inside the section.

The three conditions

For section 47 to apply, all three must be satisfied, and an answer that gives fewer than three is incomplete.

One, the question must arise between the PARTIES to the suit, or their representatives. A stranger to the suit is outside the section entirely. If a third party claims the attached property belongs to him, that is not a section 47 question; it is a claim under Order XXI Rule 58.