Section 88 — Where interpleader-suit may be instituted
You hold money or property that two or more people claim against each other, while you yourself want nothing from it (beyond your charges or costs). Pay the wrong one and you pay twice. Section 88 lets you sue all the claimants together in an interpleader suit, so the court decides who is entitled — and you walk away indemnified.
How to read Section 88
The stakeholder’s fix
You hold a debt, money or property that rival claimants demand from you. You have no interest of your own (bar charges or costs) and are ready to hand it over — but to whom?
The remedy
Sue all the claimants at once in interpleader. The court decides who is entitled, and you obtain indemnity — protection against paying the wrong person.
The bar (proviso)
If a suit is already pending in which all those rights can properly be decided, you cannot bring a separate interpleader suit.
The bare Act
Where two or more persons claim adversely to one another the same debts, sum of money or other property, movable or immovable, from another person, who claims no interest therein other than for charges or costs and who is ready to pay or deliver it to the rightful claimant, such other person may institute a suit of interpleader against all the claimants for the purpose of obtaining a decision as to the person to whom the payment or delivery shall be made and of obtaining indemnity for himself:
Section 88 stands as in the original 1908 Code — unamended. The procedure for interpleader suits is in Order XXXV.
Key terms decoded
A suit by a stakeholder who holds property claimed by rivals, asking the court to decide between the claimants — he “interpleads” them so they fight it out, not with him but with each other.
The claimants’ demands conflict — each says the same thing is his, to the exclusion of the others.
One and the same thing — a debt, a sum of money, or any property (movable or immovable) — is the subject of the rival claims.
The stakeholder must be disinterested — he wants nothing from the property itself, except perhaps his charges or costs of holding it.
He must be willing to hand it over to whoever is held entitled — he is not withholding it for himself.
The protection the suit secures: once he pays as the court directs, he is safe from any later claim by the others.
If another suit is already on foot in which all these rights can properly be decided, interpleader is barred — no need for a parallel suit.
The rules that work § 88 — how an interpleader suit is framed, the plaint, and the court’s power to discharge the stakeholder.
The picture — the stakeholder steps aside
The stakeholder does not take sides — he hands the dispute to the court and steps out, protected by an indemnity. Interpleader is unavailable only where a pending suit can already resolve everyone’s rights.
Section 88, part by part
Connected provisions
Section 88 is the Interpleader node of Part IV (§§ 79–93). It states when an interpleader suit lies; the procedure — the plaint, the stakeholder’s discharge, costs — is in Order XXXV. It follows the foreign-sovereigns group (§§ 83–87B) and precedes § 89 (settlement of disputes outside the Court).