Order 21, Rule 48 CPC

48. Attachment of salary or allowances of servant of the Government or railway company or local authority.

(1) Where the property to be attached is the salary or allowances of a servant of the Government or of a servant of a railway company or local authority [or of a servant of a corporation engaged in any trade or industry which is established by a Central, Provincial or State Act, or a Government company as defined in section 617 of the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956)] the Court, whether the judgment-debtor or the disbursing officer is or is not within the local limits of the Court’s jurisdiction, may order that the amount shall, subject to the provisions of section 60, be withheld from such salary or allowances either in one payment or by monthly instalments as the Court may direct; and, upon notice of the order to such officer as the appropriate Government may be notification in the Official Gazette appoint in this behalf,-
(a) where such salary or allowances are to be disbursed within the local limits to which this Code for the time being extends, the officer or other person whose duty it is to disburse the same shall withhold and remits to the Court the amount due under the order, or the monthly instalments, as the case may be;

(b) where such salary or allowances are to be disbursed beyond the said limits, the officer or other person within those limits whose duty it is to instruct the disbursing authority regarding the amount of the salary or allowances to the disbursed shall remit to the Court the amount due under the order, or the monthly instalments, as the case may be, and shall direct the disbursing authority to reduce the aggregate of the amounts from time to time, to be disbursed by the aggregate of the amounts from time to time remitted to the Courts.

(2) Where the attachable proportion of such salary or allowances is already being withheld and remitted to a Court in pursuance of a previous and unsatisfied order of attachment, the officer appointed by the appropriate Government in this behalf shall forthwith return the subsequent order to the Court issuing it with a full statement of all the particulars of the existing attachment.

(3) Every order made under this rule, unless it is returned in accordance with the provisions of sub-rule (2) shall, without further notice or other process, bind the appropriate Government or the railway company or local authority or corporation or Government company, as the case may be, while the judgment-debtor is within the local limits to which this Code for the time being extends and while he is beyond those limits, if he is in receipt of any salary or allowances payable out of the Consolidated Fund of India or the consolidated Fund of the State or the funds of a railway company or local authority or corporation or Government Company in India; and the appropriate Government or the railway company or local authority or corporation or Government company, as the case may be, shall be liable for any sum paid in contravention of the rule.

Explanation–
In this rule, “appropriate Government” means,-
(i) as respects any person in the service of the Central Government, or any servant of a railway administration or of a cantonment authority or of the port authority of a major port, or any servant of a corporation engaged in any trade or industry which is established by Central Act, or any servant of a Government company in which any part of the share capital is held by the Central Government or by more than one State Governments or partly by the Central Government and partly by one or more State Governments, the Central Government;

(ii) as respects any other servant of the Government, or a servant of any other local or other authority, or any servant of a corporation engaged in any trade or industry which is established by a Provincial or State Act, or a servant of any other Government company, the State Government.

Read CPC in a better and systematic way.

Download beautiful, colourful CPC PDF.