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CPC, 1908 · Part II · Execution · Keeping the detained debtor

Subsistence-Allowance

A debtor jailed for debt is not to be starved: the State fixes monthly subsistence scales for him — and (by Order XXI) the creditor must pay them, or the debtor goes free.

§ 57

How to read Section 57

What it does

It empowers the State Government to fix scales of monthly allowances for the subsistence (upkeep) of judgment-debtors held in civil prison.

Who pays

The decree-holder — under Order XXI, Rules 39–40, the creditor must deposit the allowance; if he does not, the debtor is not detained / is released.

A relic to note

The grading by “rank, race and nationality” is a 1908 colonial classification — today at odds with Articles 14–15 and effectively obsolete.

The bare Act

57. Subsistence-allowance.

The State Government may fix scales, graduated according to rank, race and nationality, of monthly allowances payable for the subsistence of judgment-debtors.

Provenance § 57 stands as enacted in the original Code of 1908 — the bare Act carries no amendment to it (the “rank, race and nationality” wording survives unaltered).

Why § 57 exists

A one-line section with a real purpose — three reasons, and one caveat:

1 · A debtor must be maintained

Civil detention is not punishment by starvation. A judgment-debtor is a debtor, not a convict — while held, he must be fed and kept alive. § 57 secures a fixed allowance for his subsistence.

2 · The creditor pays — a check

Under Order XXI, Rules 39–40, the decree-holder must deposit the subsistence allowance; if he fails, the debtor is not arrested / is released. So a creditor who wants his debtor jailed must bear the cost — discouraging vindictive detention.

3 · Uniform, State-fixed scales

Rather than arbitrary, case-by-case sums, the State Government fixes graduated scales — giving certainty about how much must be paid for a detained debtor’s upkeep.

⚠ Caveat The grading by “rank, race and nationality” is a colonial-era classification carried over from 1908. It sits uneasily with the equality guarantee of Article 14 and the bar on race discrimination in Article 15 of the Constitution — in practice the race/nationality criteria are obsolete; only the statutory text remains.

Key terms decoded

Subsistence allowance

Money for the basic upkeep (food and the like) of a judgment-debtor detained in the civil prison.

Scales graduated by rank, race and nationality

Tiered amounts that vary by these categories — an archaic colonial classification retained in the 1908 text.

Monthly allowances

The allowance is a monthly sum, paid for as long as the debtor is detained.

State Government

The authority § 57 empowers to fix the scales of these allowances.

The picture — fed by the creditor, or freed

§ 57 sets the scale; Order XXI puts the bill on the creditor. Detention for debt is allowed — but only if the person seeking it pays to keep the debtor alive.

Phrase by phrase

One sentence, four working parts:

Who may fix

The State Government may fix scales

The power is the State Government’s, and it is discretionary (“may”) — it sets the scales of allowance, not a single figure.

Graded by

graduated according to rank, race and nationality

The scales are tiered by rank, race and nationality — a colonial-era classification now in tension with Articles 14–15 and effectively dead in practice.

What

of monthly allowances

What is fixed are monthly allowances — a recurring sum payable for each month the debtor remains in detention.

For whom & why

payable for the subsistence of judgment-debtors

The purpose is the subsistence — the upkeep — of judgment-debtors in civil detention, so imprisonment for debt never becomes imprisonment by starvation.

How § 57 connects

§ 57 is the upkeep rule that sits behind the arrest sections. The live links open them.

§ 55Arrest and detentionPuts the debtor in the civil prison; § 57 (with Order XXI) provides for his upkeep there.

§ 56No arrest of women (money decree)Where § 56 forbids detention altogether, no question of subsistence arises.

§ 51Powers to enforce executionClause (c)’s arrest power is the reason a detained debtor must be maintained at all.

Procedure tie-in: the working rules are in Order XXI, Rules 39–40 — the court fixes the monthly subsistence allowance on the § 57 scale; the decree-holder must deposit it; non-payment means the debtor is not committed, or is released.

Quick test:

1 A judgment-debtor is to be detained in civil prison? → a monthly subsistence allowance on the State’s § 57 scale is due.

2 Who pays it? → the decree-holder (Order XXI, r. 39–40).

3 Not paid? → the debtor is not detained / is released.

Part II · Execution · §§ 36–74 — § 56 · § 57 · § 58 (detention and release)