Sections 59 and 60 CPC: Release for Illness and Property Exempt from Attachment

(1) At any time after a warrant for the arrest of a judgment-debtor has been issued the Court may cancel it on the ground of his serious illness.

(2) Where a judgment-debtor has been arrested, the Court may release him if, in its opinion, he is not in a fit state of health to be detained in the civil prison.

(3) Where a judgment-debtor has been committed to the civil prison, he may be released therefrom-

(a) by the State Government, on the ground of the existence of any infectious or contagious disease, or

(b) by the committing Court, or any Court to which that Court is subordinate, on the ground of his suffering from any serious illness.

(4) A judgment-debtor released under this section may be re-arrested, but the period of his detention in the civil prison shall not in the aggregate exceed that prescribed by section 58.

(1) The following property is liable to attachment and sale in execution of a decree, namely, lands, houses or other buildings, goods, money, bank-notes, cheques, bills of exchange, hundis, promissory notes, Government securities, bonds or other securities for money, debts, shares in a corporation and, save as hereinafter mentioned, all other saleable property, movable or immovable, belonging to the judgment-debtor, or over which, or the profits of which, he has a disposing power which he may exercise for his own benefit, whether the same be held in the name of the judgment-debtor or by another person in trust for him or on his behalf.

Provided that the following particulars shall not be liable to such attachment or sale:

1. The necessary wearing-apparel, cooking vessels, beds and bedding of the judgment-debtor, his wife and children, and such personal ornaments as, in accordance with religious usage, cannot be parted with by any woman.
2. Tools of artisans and, where the judgment-debtor is an agriculturist, implements of husbandry and such cattle and seed-grain as the Court considers necessary to enable him to earn his livelihood, together with agricultural produce declared exempt under the next following section.
3. Houses and other buildings, including the materials, sites and land immediately appurtenant and necessary for their enjoyment, belonging to an agriculturist, labourer or domestic servant and occupied by him.
4. Books of account.
5. A mere right to sue for damages.
6. Any right of personal service.
7. Stipends and gratuities allowed to pensioners of the Government, local authority or other employer, amounts payable out of notified service family pension funds, and political pensions.
8. The wages of labourers and domestic servants, whether payable in money or in kind.
9. Salary to the extent of the first one thousand rupees and two-thirds of the remainder in execution of any decree other than a decree for maintenance, subject to the statutory rules governing the duration and renewal of attachment.
10. One-third of salary in execution of a decree for maintenance.
11. The pay and allowances of persons to whom the Air Force Act, 1950, Army Act, 1950, or Navy Act, 1957 applies.
12. Compulsory deposits and other sums in or derived from funds protected by the Provident Funds Act, 1925, to the extent declared exempt by that Act.
13. Deposits and other sums in or derived from a fund protected under the Public Provident Fund law, to the extent declared exempt from attachment.
14. Moneys payable under a policy of insurance on the life of the judgment-debtor.
15. The interest of a lessee of a residential building to which rent-control or accommodation-control law applies.
16. Allowances forming part of the emoluments of specified Government, railway-company or local-authority servants which the appropriate Government declares exempt by notification, and subsistence grants or allowances made to such servants while under suspension.
17. An expectancy of succession by survivorship or other merely contingent or possible right or interest.
18. A right to future maintenance.
19. Any allowance declared by Indian law to be exempt from attachment or sale in execution of a decree.
20. Where the judgment-debtor is liable for payment of land revenue, movable property exempt under applicable law from sale for recovery of arrears of such revenue.

Explanations and additional protections

Explanation I: Moneys payable in relation to the protected categories specified by the section are exempt from attachment or sale whether before or after they are actually payable. In the case of salary, the attachable portion is liable to attachment whether before or after it is actually payable.

Explanation II: For the salary clauses, "salary" means the total monthly emoluments, excluding any allowance declared exempt under the relevant allowance clause, derived from employment whether on duty or on leave.

Explanation III: "Appropriate Government" means the Central Government for specified Central Government, railway, cantonment and major-port personnel, and the State Government for other Government servants and servants of other local authorities, as provided by the section.

Explanation IV: For the purposes of the proviso, "wages" includes bonus and "labourer" includes a skilled, unskilled or semi-skilled labourer.

Explanation V: "Agriculturist" means a person who cultivates land personally and depends for his livelihood mainly on income from agricultural land, whether as owner, tenant, partner or agricultural labourer.

Explanation VI: An agriculturist is deemed to cultivate land personally if he cultivates it by his own labour, by labour of any member of his family, or by servants or labourers paid wages in cash or kind, not as a share of the produce, or by both.

(1A) Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, an agreement by which a person agrees to waive the benefit of any exemption under this section is void.

(2) Nothing in this section exempts houses and other buildings, together with the materials, sites and lands immediately appurtenant and necessary for their enjoyment, from attachment or sale in execution of decrees for rent of any such house, building, site or land.