JUDGMENT Walsh and Ryves, JJ.
1. Moti Lal and others, plaintiffs, obtained a simple money decree against Jatan Singh. He died, and the' plaintiffs decree-holders applied to attach certain property in the possession of Jagannath Singh, claiming that Jatan Singh was the uncle of Jagannath Singh and that they formed a joint Hindu family. Various objections were taken by Jagannath Singh under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The trial court held that Jatan Singh was the uncle of Jagannath Singh, but said that, as the decree was clearly a personal decree and was not passed against Jatan as the karla of a joint family, there was no obligation on Jagannath Singh to pay Jatan Singh's debt and that the property was not liable to attachment and sale. The decree-holders appealed, and the learned Subordinate Judge held that under Section 53 of the Code of Civil Procedure the words "or their descendant included a nephew, and, therefore, reversed the finding, of the trial court and remanded the case for trial of the other issues.
2. Jagannath Singh comes here in appeal against the order of remand. The point turns on the interpretation to be put on Section 53 of the Code of Civil Procedure. This section was introduced into the Code by Act V of 1908. It says that for the purpose of Section 50, property in the hands of a son or other descendant which is liable under the Hindu law for the payment of the debt of the deceased ancestor in respect of which a decree has been passed shall be deemed to be the property of the deceased which had come into the hands of the son or other descendant as his legal representative. It is noteworthy that the son or other descendant can only be charged if the property is liable under the Hindu law for the payment of the debt of a deceased ancestor. Sir Ernest Trevelyan in the second edition of his Hindu Law, at p. 323, sums up the law in the following words:
Apart from the obligation of a son or grandson to pay the debts of his father or grandfather out of co-parcenary property, the Hindu law, like other systems of law, requires the person who succeeds to the property of another as heir or devisee, to pay the legal debts of such other person, whatever may be the purpose of such debts, to the extent of the assets received by him. There is no obligation upon any other co-parcener who has acquired rights by survivorship to pay the debts of the deceased co-parcener.
3. It seems, therefore, that under Section 53 it is only the son or lineal descendant who comes within the scope of the section. We are fortified in. this view by the decision of the case of Chunilal Harilal v. Bai Mani (1918) I.L.R. 42 Bom. 504. In this view the appeal succeeds and the order of remand must be set aside and the decree of the first court restored with costs in all courts.