P VENKATAVARADAN Vs. LAKSHMI AMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondents to this revision remain ex parte. No counsel is before me to represent their side of the case. More is the pity because the question for decision raises a somewhat rare problem in execution. The Code does not offer ready answer to it. There is no direct precedent of this Court either. I heard Mr. M. Srinivasan for the petitioner. His advocacy was fair to the other side. This was only to be expected. All the same, at the end of the day, I could not help feeling that listening to an advocate argue both sides of a question is not quite the same thing as hearing advocates on both sides argue that question from rival positions. In such cases, we are often left with a sense of 'unfinished finish' about the hearing, if I may borrow a phrase from Galsworthy. I must, however, tale this revision as I find it, and deal with the point as best I may,

(2.) Outwardly, the point looks simple. It has to do with a problem of set-off -in execution. The set-off is as between parties figuring under the same decree Order 21 Rule 19 provides for certain cases of set-off. It says that cross decrees as between two parties are entitled it, be set off against each other.

(3.) Needless to say, the problem would arise only when the cross-decrees are decrees for money. What we have here is a final decree for partition of properties. But the decree contains two provisions which may be regarded as cross-decrees for money. On the one side, there is a decree for costs in certain sum. On the other side there is a decree for owelty in a certain sum. The matter under revision arises in execution of the decree for costs. And the question raised is whether the decree for costs can be set off against the decree for owelty.