UNION OF INDIA versus JYOTI CHIT FUND & FINANCE & ORS.

Citation: [1976] 3 S.C.R. 763 · Decided: 22-03-1976 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: Y.V. CHANDRACHUD · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · cites 1 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

I 
" 
• 
• 
763 
UNION OF INDIA 
v. 
JYOTI CHIT FUND & FINANCE & ORS. 
March 22, 1976 
[Y. V. CHANDRACHUD AND V. R. KRISHNA IYER, JJ.J 
Provident Funds Act, 1925, Ss. 3 and 4-Provident fund and allied a1nounts 
ff/ll due, whether exclusion from attachability continues-Objection to attachnzent 
taken pro bono publico by Union of India, if valid-'Locus standi', scope of. 
A 
B 
The appellant Union of India objected to the attachment of certain provid_~nt 
fund and pension dues held by it (on behalf of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat) in 
trust for the fourth respondent, an ex·employee of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. 
The attachment was sought in satisfaction of a money·decree held by the first 
C 
respondent. 
The High Court dismissed the appellant's Civil Revision petition 
upholding the decision of the executing court. 
In appeal by special leave, the appellant contended before this Court that 
<11though a third party to the suit, the state had acted pro bono publico, by ob-
jccing to the illegality of the proposed attachment, and that it was a question of 
principle, afiecting a wide circle of government servants. 
The respondent con-
tended that the amounts having already fallen due, had lost the character of pro-
vident fund or pension under Ss. 3 and 4, and had become attachable, and also 
that the government had no (ocus standi to object to the attachmen. 
Allowing the appeal, the Court 
HELD : ( 1) So long as the amounts are Provident Fund dues then, till they 
are actually paid to the government servant who is entitled to it on retirement 
or otherwise, the nature of the dues is not altered. The government is a trustee 
for those sums and has an interest in maintaining 
the objection in court, to 
attachment. 
f767D-EJ 
Union of India v. Radha Kissen Aganvalla & Anr. [1969] 3 S.C.R. 28, fol-
lowed. 
(2) Cases where public policy is involved and the court has a certain duty 
to observe statutory prohibitions, a wider concept of locus standi has to be taken . 
. Any public authority interested in the matter, and not behaving as an officious 
busy-body may bring to the notice of the court the illegality of the steps it pro-
poses to take. When the court's jurisdiction is so invoked, it may be exercised 
\>."ithout insisting on some other directly affected party appearing to defend him-
self. [767F-GJ 
(3) The argument that the Rajya Sabha Secretariat is different from 
the 
Union of India, has the merit of novelty, little else. [767 G & 768HJ 
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 
2179 
of 
D 
E 
F 
19m 
G 
Appeal by Special Leave from the Judgment and Order dated the 
1st May, 1970 of the Delhi High Court in Civil Revision No. 26 
of 1970. 
G. L. Sanghi, Girish Chandra a1U/ S. P. Nayar for the Appellants. 
K. B. Rohtagi, M. K. Garg, V. K. Jain and M .. K. Rastogi for 
H 
Respondent No. 1. 
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by 
A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
H 
764 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
(1976] 3 S.C.R. 
KRISHNA IYER, J.-The moral of this case is that a short cut may 
often be a wrong cut-in law, as in life. 
The ratio of this appeal is 
that technicality will not triumph in courts of law and justice, where 
substantial public policy is involved and it is such public policy which 
humanistically protects provident fund and pensionary dues of govern-
ment servants from claims of judgment-creditors to attach in satis-
faction of decrees. 
The appellant, the Union of India, has come up in appeal, by 
special leave, challenging a laconic order of dismissal in Civil Revision 
made by the Delhi High Court, thus upholding the view of tlhe execut-
ing court over-ruling the contention of the State, objecting to the 
attachment of certain provident fund and pension dues held by Union 
of India (on behalf of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat) in trust for the 
judgment-debtor who had been employed in the Rajya Sabha Secret-
ariat. 
The first court had held that the Union of India had no locus 
standi to object to the attachment by the decree-holder on the score 
that an outsider to the snit without 'interest in the attached money' 
has standing to intervene to dispute the attachability even if the sum 
was clearly innnune to attachment in law. 
The relev~nt reasoning 
is in these terms : 
"It is not the case of the Union of India that Union of 
India has any interest in the attached property so as to enc 
title Union of India to make an application under Order 21, 
r. 58 CPC. 
In my opinion, if the attachment has been 
wrongl

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