Attachment of Property

In one line

Attachment is the act by which a court takes hold of a judgment-debtor's property so that it cannot be disposed of, and section 60 says what may be attached and, in a long list of exemptions, what may not.

Why attachment comes before sale

Attachment does not transfer anything to the decree-holder. It freezes. Its function is to preserve the property until it can be sold and to stop the judgment-debtor defeating the decree by selling first.

That is why section 64 is the operative sanction, and why the list of exemptions in section 60 is so long and so specific: freezing a man's property is easy to do and hard to undo, so the Code protects the things he cannot live or work without.

What may be attached: section 60(1)

Section 60(1): the following property is liable to attachment and sale in execution of a decree: lands, houses or other buildings, goods, money, bank notes, cheques, bills of exchange, hundis, promissory notes, Government securities, bonds or other securities for money, debts, shares in a corporation and, save as thereinafter mentioned, all other saleable property, movable or immovable, belonging to the judgment-debtor, or over which, or the profits of which, he has a disposing power which he may exercise for his own benefit, whether held in his own name or by another person in trust for him or on his behalf.

Two ideas do the work. The property must be saleable, and the judgment-debtor must either own it or have a disposing power over it exercisable for his own benefit. The final words defeat the obvious trick: property held by somebody else in trust for him, or on his behalf, is still attachable.

What may not be attached: the proviso to section 60(1)

The proviso is a list, and an examiner asking "what property is exempt from attachment" wants the list. These are the principal items:

(a) the necessary wearing apparel, cooking vessels, beds and bedding of the judgment-debtor, his wife and children, and such personal ornaments as by religious usage cannot be parted with by any woman (b) tools of artisans, and where the judgment-debtor is an agriculturist, his implements of husbandry and such cattle and seed grain as the Court thinks necessary to enable him to earn his livelihood (c) houses and other buildings, with their materials, sites and appurtenant land, belonging to an agriculturist, a labourer or a domestic servant and occupied by him (d) books of account (e) a mere right to sue for damages (f) any right of personal service (g) stipends and gratuities allowed to pensioners of the Government, a local authority or any other employer, and political pensions (h) the wages of labourers and domestic servants, whether payable in money or in kind (i) salary to the extent of the first one thousand rupees and two thirds of the remainder, in execution of any decree other than a decree for maintenance