1906 (3) TMI 2

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..... amount of Court-fees to be certified as aforesaid to the Government Solicitor and to the plaintiff the other costs of suit. It was further declared that the amount of the Court-fees certified as aforesaid, should form a first charge on the house and premises to he conveyed to the plaintiff. 2. It appears that the property directed to be conveyed has been so conveyed, and thereafter the plaintiff applied for attachment of certain other premises belonging to the defendants, and having attached this property she obtained the usual order for sale and the property was sold and the sale-proceeds ordered to be paid into Court, to remain there subject to the further order of the Court. There is now in Court standing to the credit of this suit the .....

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..... the moneys used in Court the plaintiff will be benefited, inasmuch as to that extent the charge upon her property, the subject-matter of the suit, will cease to have any operation. The question on this application is whether the Government Solicitor is entitled to claim precedence. There is no doubt that the Court-fees form a Crown debt and under ordinary circumstances the principle would apply that the Crown would be entitled to precedence in payment of this debt over all other creditors. That is a principle recognised by the Courts of this country ever since the decision of the Bombay Court in the case of Secretary of State v. The Bombay Landing and Shipping Company, Ld. (1886) 5 Bom. 23. It has been contended that Section 411 of the Civ .....

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..... er the Crown had to the method described in the section, that is to say, that the Crown in order to recover the Court-fees must proceed to enforce the charge on the subject-matter of the suit, and that, as regards other properties of the judgment-debtor, the Crown has only the right of a private judgment-creditor and can only proceed to realise its claim in the usual method by attachment and sale. I think, however, I must hold that the section must be read as an enabling section, and though it indicates the manner, in which the Crown may proceed to realise the debt, it does not preclude the Crown or its representatives from urging its prerogative and insisting on its right to precedence over all other creditors. That view of the right of th .....

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