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properties. The suit was compromised between the parties and a decree was passed
accordingly. According to the compromise, the properties were separated by allotment.
A certain family residential house was allotted to the share of the defendant with the
condition that the defendant would pay Rs. 70,000 to the plaintiff. The Rs. 70,000 was
to be paid, as to Rs. 10,000 at the time of the settlement and the balance of Rs.
60,000 in six annual instalments of Rs. 10,000 each, commencing from 30th
December 1931, with a farther stipulation that the defendant should pay interest on
the entire Rs. 60,000 at the date of payment of each instalment. Clauses 6 and 7 of
the compromise agreement are as follows:
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in arrears the plaintiff shall be entitled to execution for the entire balance and he seeks
to justify this contention on the strength of the ordinary doctrine of appropriation. He
contends that having made a specific appropriation when making the payment, the
creditor was not entitled to accept it without accepting also the condition of
appropriation. This argument is often raised in such cases and in my opinion it has no
substance. If a series of separate debts exist between a creditor and a debtor, the
debtor may it is true pay any one of them as he may deem fit and if he specifically
appropriates the payment to a later debt, the creditor is not entitled to accept the
payment otherwise than in respect of the debt to which it is so appropriated by the
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debtor. This doctrine however has no application when the parties enter into an
agreement regulating the order of payment. Cls. 6 and 7 of the agreement make it
dear that the intention of the parties was for successive payments of successive
instalments and this is the case with most compromise decrees. The terms of the
agreement are inconsistent with any other interpretation. It is not necessary for the
rejection of the judgment-debtor's argument to fall back upon any distinction between
the payment of a single debt by instalments and payment of separate debts, though
such distinction may be important in other classes of disputes. In the case before us
the matter can be re solved as a matter of contract. These two points were the only
ones raised before us in argument. In my opinion the decision of the learned Judge
was right and this appeal should be dismissed with costs.
D.S./R.K.
5. Appeal dismissed.
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