CPC, 1908 · Part II · Execution · General
Application to orders
Part II opens with a bridge. The whole machinery built to execute a decree is switched on for an order too — so far as it can apply.
Part II · Execution begins here
How to read Section 36
Takes every rule in the Code about executing a decree — including the rules for realising money — and deems them to apply to executing an order as well.
Courts pass not only decrees but a great many enforceable orders — for costs, restitution, interim payments. Section 36 supplies the procedure to enforce them; without it, an order would be a right without a remedy.
Only “so far as they are applicable.” A decree-execution rule that fits an order applies; one that cannot fit, by its nature, simply falls away.
The bare Act
The provisions of this Code relating to the execution of decrees (including provisions relating to payment under a decree) shall, so far as they are applicable, be deemed to apply to the execution of orders (including payment under an order).
The two highlighted phrases were added in 1976 to put money-realisation beyond doubt — see the amendment note below.
Key terms decoded
(§ 2(2)) The formal expression of an adjudication that conclusively determines the rights of the parties in a suit.
(§ 2(14)) The formal expression of any decision of a civil court which is not a decree.
The device by which the execution provisions — written in terms of “decrees” — are made to apply to orders as well.
Section 36, phrase by phrase
What is being bridged: decree vs order
Orders that get executed through § 36’s machinery: an order for costs (§ 35), compensatory costs (§ 35A), costs for delay (§ 35B), an order for restitution (§ 144), interim orders directing payment, and the orders made under Order XXI itself.
Why the 1976 words matter
Section 36 was substituted by the Code of Civil Procedure (Amendment) Act, 1976 (Act 104 of 1976), s. 16, with effect from 1 February 1977.
The earlier section extended only the execution of decrees to orders, and a doubt had grown whether the provisions about payment — realising money — reached orders at all. The 1976 substitution settled it by expressly inserting the two bracketed phrases, so the money-recovery route now applies to an order exactly as to a decree.
The bridge in one picture
The toolbox the Code builds for decrees passes through the § 36 filter — “so far as they are applicable” — and arrives ready to enforce orders.
Same tools, same route — only the thing being enforced changes from a decree to an order. A tool that cannot fit an order is simply left behind at the filter.
How Section 36 connects
Section 36 is a junction — it borrows the decree-machinery and lends it to orders. The live links below open the concepts it joins.
- Is the thing to be enforced an order, not a decree?
- Is there a decree-execution provision (Part II / Order XXI) that fits it?
- Does anything in the nature of the order make that provision inapplicable? If not — it applies.
Ahead in Part II: § 37 (Court which passed a decree) → · § 38 (Court by which a decree may be executed) · § 51 (powers to enforce execution) · Order XXI (the detailed rules).