- ARMY ACT
- Bench: Justice NG Chandararkar, Justice K Acting and Justice Batchelor
In this case, Mr. Shah took up the case amicus curiae for the respondent who is a Lieutenant in the Army. The question before the Court was the construction of the Section 60(2) (b) of the CPC which provides that –
“Nothing in this section shall be deemed to affect the provisions of the Army Act or of any similar law for the time being in force."
Further, Section 136 of the Statute of 1895 (Army Act) provided that the salary of a British Officer in India shall be paid without deductions unless as directed by the Legislature in India. The question, therefore, is whether there is any such direction in any Act of the Indian Legislature. The term “to affect the provisions” mean that they shall not any effect and cannot encroach upon the Army Act which provides deduction to the salary basis the law in India has said expressly or by necessary implication that there shall be such deduction.
As the respondent, in this case, is an officer of the Second Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment, he is an officer of the Regular Forces and under the Army Act, Section 136, the salary of such an officer is not liable to attachment except by virtue of some law made by the Governor-General-in-Council in that behalf. But the only law made by the Governor-General-in-Council in that behalf is Section 60 of the Civil Procedure Code, and that section in its explanation, Clause 2(b) expressly declares that it does not affect the provisions of the Army Act.
Therefore it was decided by the Court in this regard that as there is no law of the Governor-General-in-Council whereby the salary of an officer is to be deducted, vide Section 60 (2) (b), the officer's salary is not liable to attachment or deductions.
