How Advocate B.K. Singh Prepares an Execution Petition to Trace Assets

What an execution lawyer in Delhi does before filing anything

Most of what makes an execution work happens before anything is filed. A decree execution advocate who skips that part is gambling. The executing court won't go looking for the judgment debtor's money. It acts on what you put in front of it. Give it a live bank account at a named branch, a customer who owes the debtor money and a property with its registration details, and you'll usually get orders at the first or second hearing. Ask it to attach "all movable and immovable properties of the judgment debtor" and you'll usually get a notice. Then a long wait.

Before a word of the petition is drafted, Advocate B.K. Singh puts three files together. The decree file covers what the decree says, who it binds, how much is due, and anything blocking enforcement. The asset file lists what the debtor owns or is owed, where each item is, and how we'll prove it. The objection file anticipates what the debtor and its friends will say once attachment starts, along with the papers that answer them. The petition gets written out of those three files. Not the other way round.

That's the method this page explains. For the general law (modes of execution, how long it all takes) see our guide on how to execute a decree and actually get paid, and for the service itself, our execution of decree page. Here we stay with preparation, and with tracing assets in particular. In our experience that's where execution files are won or lost.

First check: what exactly does the decree say, and who does it bind?

Read the decree sheet. The judgment alone isn't enough. It's the decree that gets executed, and now and then it differs from the judgment on the rate of interest, the period it runs for, the costs, or even the parties' names. If you find a mismatch, the fix lies with the court that passed the decree. The executing court can't correct it. Spotting it before you file saves you a whole round of objections.

Then list everyone the decree runs against. A decree against a company reaches only the company's assets. If it also runs against a director or promoter as guarantor, or against the partners, their personal assets come into play. Partnership firms need care. A decree against the firm in its own name can be enforced against a partner personally only with the court's leave under Order XXI Rule 50 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC), and if the firm's own assets look thin, we ask for that leave in the same petition. With a proprietorship concern, the decree runs against the proprietor.

Last, look for obstacles. Has the debtor appealed, and has the appeal court stayed the decree? Filing an appeal doesn't stop execution by itself. Stays usually come with conditions, often a deposit. If more than two years have passed since the decree, Order XXI Rule 22 requires notice to the judgment debtor before attachment. If the debtor company has been admitted into insolvency, the moratorium under Section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 halts execution while it lasts. And keep the outer limit in mind. It's 12 years from when a money decree became enforceable, under Article 136 of the Limitation Act, 1963.

Second check: what your own file says about the debtor's money

Clients rarely think to look in their own records, yet that's usually where the best leads are. Advocate B.K. Singh's first question is always the same: where did the debtor's last payment come from. An RTGS or NEFT credit in your bank statement shows who sent it and, usually, from which bank. An old cheque from the debtor has the bank, branch and account number printed right on it. Even a bounced one helps. The return memo confirms the account and the branch.

Next, go through the paperwork of the relationship itself. GST invoices and e-way bills carry the debtor's addresses, including godowns and branches you may never have visited. Delivery challans show where goods actually landed. Purchase orders sometimes name the debtor's own customer or project, which points to money you can attach. And the emails, read carefully, mention its other suppliers, the bankers it approached for credit, its landlords, even its vehicles.

Talk to the people who dealt with the debtor every day. The owner often knows least. Your sales executive who visited its warehouse in Kundli knows whether there was stock on the racks. Your accountant knows which bank the debtor's cheques were drawn on over the years, and whether that changed once the cheques started bouncing. A switch of bank just before default is a lead in itself.

Third check: public records for asset tracing a decree

If the debtor is a company or LLP, start on the MCA portal. The master data gives you the registered office and the directors. Its filed financial statements show cash and bank balances, trade receivables, fixed assets and borrowings, and the notes often name its banks. Then there's the register of charges, which tells you which lenders hold security over which assets. A bank that has lent to the debtor usually runs its current account too. Charged assets also tell you what the debtor owns, though a secured lender will rank ahead of you on them. Our guide on finding out whether a debtor has assets covers these sources in depth. What changes at execution is precision. Each lead now has to be specific enough to go into a court order.

Search the debtor on the GST portal and you'll see its principal place of business and any additional places it has registered. Property shows up in sub-registrar records in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, and in land records too: khatauni extracts in UP, jamabandi in Haryana. CERSAI can be searched for registered security interests, for a fee. In Noida, Greater Noida and the HSIIDC estates, industrial plots are often leasehold. There, the allotting authority's records matter as much as the sub-registrar's.

Court and tribunal records show you who else is after the same debtor. The e-Courts services list other suits and executions against it. NCLT cause lists and IBBI public announcements reveal insolvency proceedings. If another creditor has already attached a property, you want to know before you name it. Government procurement portals and published tender results occasionally show the debtor holding a contract with a public body. That means money will become payable to the debtor, and it can be attached in that body's hands.

Some things are off limits. You can't get a debtor's bank statements by asking the bank informally. You can't pose as someone else to get information, and you can't buy personal data. That kind of information comes through the court, under a disclosure order. More on that below.

Fourth check: which court can reach the assets, and is one court enough?

Section 38 of the CPC lets a decree be executed by the court that passed it, or by the court it's sent to. When the assets sit outside the decree court's local limits, the decree is transferred under Section 39 to the court where they are, and Section 39(4) stops the decree court from going after property outside its limits itself. So if the Commercial Court at Tis Hazari passes a decree against a debtor whose only property is a factory in Faridabad, the decree has to travel to Faridabad for that factory.

Transfers are slow. Weeks, sometimes months. If there's a risk the property gets sold in the meantime, the decree court can issue a precept under Section 46, directing the other court to attach it for a limited period. When the asset file shows fresh signs of disposal, say a sale advertisement or a new charge on the property, Advocate B.K. Singh usually asks for the precept in the same application as the transfer.

Where assets are spread across Delhi, UP and Haryana, execution can run in more than one court at once, as long as each court is told what's been recovered elsewhere. Arbitral awards are easier on this point. In Sundaram Finance v. Abdul Samad (2018) the Supreme Court held that an award can be enforced directly wherever the assets are, without first getting a transfer from the court that has jurisdiction over the arbitration.

The provisions an execution petition rests on

Drafting the petition: the order of reliefs

Sequence counts. Judges warm to a petition that starts with the quick, light-touch measures and climbs to heavier ones only when it has to. So a typical draft from Advocate B.K. Singh runs roughly like this. First, freeze the named bank accounts up to the decretal amount. Second, garnishee orders against the named customers, tenants or anyone else holding the debtor's money. Third, a direction that the debtor, or its directors, file an affidavit of assets with bank statements for a stated period. Fourth, attachment of the specific immovable property we've identified. And last, where the debtor runs a business that earns well but keeps nothing in its own name, a receiver over its income. Our page on appointment of a court receiver explains when that final step makes sense.

Arrest and detention go at the end, if they appear at all. In Jolly George Varghese v. Bank of Cochin (1980) the Supreme Court held that a debtor can't be locked up simply for not paying. There has to be proof of means and wilful refusal, or of dishonest transfer or concealment. Lead with arrest and the petition reads like a pressure tactic. Judges notice.

Don't neglect the calculation sheet. It should set out principal, interest at the decreed rate for each period, costs awarded and credit for anything already paid, all with dates. A lot of execution objections are arithmetic disputes in disguise. Get the sums right and they vanish.

The timelines are tighter now. In Rahul S. Shah v. Jinendra Kumar Gandhi (2021) the Supreme Court directed that execution proceedings ordinarily be decided within six months. In Periyammal v. V. Rajamani (2025) it went further, asking High Courts to see that pending execution petitions are disposed of within six months and holding presiding officers answerable for delay. Give the court something specific to act on and it's far more willing to pass firm orders early.

From decree to filing: how a typical execution file moves

This is roughly how our team works through a money decree or award against a business in Delhi NCR. If the asset file shows the debtor getting rid of things, we move faster.

1. Get the decree and check it

   Apply for the certified copy of the judgment and decree the day judgment is pronounced. Compare the decree sheet with the judgment on amount, interest, costs and parties, and note any appeal or stay.

2. Sit down with the client's team

   Talk to the owner, the accountant and whoever handled the debtor. Collect bank statements showing the debtor's payments, its cheques, invoices, e-way bills, purchase orders and emails. Write down every address and name that turns up.

3. Run the public searches

   MCA portal, GST records, CERSAI, property and land records in every state where the debtor has a presence, e-Courts, NCLT and IBBI notices. Note the date of each search and keep printouts. The court may ask to see them.

4. Sort the assets

   Split what you've found into three piles: assets that can be attached fast (bank accounts, debts owed by solvent third parties), assets that need more work (property with clear title in the debtor's name), and leads that need the debtor's own disclosure. The petition opens with the first pile.

5. Pick the court, or courts

   Decide between filing in the decree court, seeking a transfer under Section 39, asking for a precept under Section 46, or running execution in more than one court. For an award, file where the assets are.

6. Draft the petition and affidavit

   Prepare the petition with the particulars Order XXI Rule 11(2) requires, the calculation sheet, the asset list with supporting papers, and the reliefs in the right order. Add an application for an affidavit of assets under Rule 41 and, against a firm, for leave under Rule 50.

7. File, then chase every order

   Once orders come, make sure they're actually served on the banks and garnishees, track the replies, and press for attached money to be paid out. An order nobody serves recovers nothing.

Summary suit decrees have a few quirks in the first weeks after the decree. Our guide on executing a summary suit decree covers them.

What to gather before the petition is drafted

• The certified copy of the judgment and decree sheet, or the award, with proof of when you received it and that the challenge period has run out
• Any appeal, stay order or Section 34 petition the debtor has filed, and where it stands
• Bank statements showing every payment you got from the debtor, with UTR numbers
• Copies of the debtor's cheques, bounced ones and their return memos included
• GST invoices, e-way bills, delivery challans and purchase orders that show addresses and projects
• MCA master data, financial statements and the charge register, if the debtor is a company or LLP
• Whatever property details you have: address, khasra or property number, and the sale deed or allotment letter if you can lay hands on it
• Names and addresses of customers, tenants or anyone else you know owes the debtor money
• Vehicle numbers, and where its stock or machinery is kept
• Your working of principal, interest and costs up to the filing date, giving credit for any part payment
• The vakalatnama and, if the decree holder is a company, a board resolution or authority letter

Preparing the execution and the early stages: time and costs

How should you use the affidavit of assets?

Think of the affidavit of assets as the debtor's own account, on oath, of what it owns, what it owes and what it has parted with. The Delhi High Court prescribed a detailed format for it in money decrees and awards in Bhandari Engineers and Builders v. Maharia Raj Joint Venture (2020). The format asks about bank accounts, immovable and movable property, receivables, liabilities and recent transfers. Executing courts in Delhi now direct it as a matter of routine. Elsewhere in NCR, courts also order disclosure under Order XXI Rule 41.

Don't treat the affidavit as the end of tracing. It's something to test. Hold it up against your asset file. Say the MCA financial statements for last year show trade receivables of Rs 1.4 crore and the affidavit shows none. That gap is what you press on. Or a property appears in an old sale deed but is missing from the affidavit. Ask where it went, and when. The court can question the deponent on oath, and a company's directors can be examined about the company's assets.

Ask for bank statements going back before the suit was filed, not just the last few months. Transfers to relatives or group companies in the months after summons tend to surface there. A transfer made to defeat creditors can be attacked under Section 53 of the Transfer of Property Act. And a false or evasive affidavit can mean detention under Rule 41(3), plus proceedings for a false statement on oath. Courts have grown impatient with debtors who treat disclosure as a box to tick.

Getting ready for objections before they arrive

Once attachment starts, objections follow. Count on it. The debtor may say under Section 47 of the CPC that the decree can't be executed, has already been satisfied, or has been worked out wrongly. A relative, an associate company or a buyer may claim under Order XXI Rule 58 that the attached property is theirs. Some debtors even file their own insolvency petition to get a moratorium. You can't stop any of this. You can see it coming.

That's the job of the objection file. It holds the papers that answer the likely points: title records showing the debtor owned the property on the date of attachment, MCA records showing the same directors on the debtor and on the company now claiming the property, the dates of transfers set against the date of summons, and payment records that knock out any claim of satisfaction. When an objection lands, the reply goes in on the next date. No adjournment wasted hunting for papers.

An executing court can't go behind the decree. Objections that try to reopen the merits of the suit should be resisted firmly, because every adjournment granted on them is time the debtor gets to use. Our page on objections to execution and attachment explains how they're decided, third-party claims included.

Where is the execution petition filed in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Gurugram?

In Delhi, a district commercial court's decree is executed by the same court that passed it. That's true at every complex: Saket, Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Rohini, Dwarka, Patiala House, Rouse Avenue. Decrees of the Delhi High Court's Commercial Division are executed on its original side. You can e-file in both, and attachment orders often reach banks electronically, so the freeze can follow the order quite quickly. Delhi's courts stick closely to the affidavit of assets practice we described earlier.

Decrees sent to Uttar Pradesh go to the court designated as Commercial Court for the district, in Ghaziabad, say, or Gautam Buddh Nagar (the district court complex at Surajpur). Property in Noida and Greater Noida is often held on lease from the development authority. Attaching and selling it means getting hold of the authority's lease and transfer records. In Haryana, decrees go to the designated Commercial Court at Gurugram or Faridabad. HSIIDC and HSVP allotments carry transfer conditions, and the court will want to see them before ordering any sale.

Each state sets its own court fees and process fees on execution applications, and they differ. Check the current schedule in every court where you file. A transferred decree also needs fresh registration in the receiving court, and sometimes fresh service too.

Mistakes in execution petitions that cost decree holders months

• A vague asset list. "All properties of the judgment debtor" gives the court nothing to bite on. Name the bank and branch. Name the property and the customer.
• Leaning only on public records. Your own bank statements and invoices usually hold better leads than any government portal.
• Forgetting the personal liability the decree allows. Partners, guarantors and proprietors can be reached. People still forget to apply for leave under Rule 50.
• Putting mortgaged property first. A property charged to a bank for more than it's worth brings objections and very little money. Look at the charge register before you name it.
• Sitting on distant property until the transfer comes through. That gap is exactly what a precept under Section 46 is for.
• Getting the interest wrong. If the calculation doesn't match the decree, the debtor gets an easy objection that takes ages to decide.
• Leaving attachment orders unserved. A freeze order nobody delivers to the bank freezes nothing. Keep at it until the bank or garnishee confirms it has complied.

Company, firm or proprietor: whose assets can the decree reach?

Against a private limited company, the decree reaches the company's assets. Being a director doesn't make someone personally liable for company debts. That changes only if the director gave a personal guarantee and the decree runs against them, or if a court lifts the corporate veil for fraud. What directors can be made to do is explain on oath where the company's money went. Our guide on recovering dues from the directors of a private limited company sets out the limits.

With a partnership firm, the decree reaches what the firm owns. Get leave under Order XXI Rule 50 and it reaches each partner's own assets as well. An LLP is different: its partners are usually shielded unless they signed a guarantee. And a proprietor has no shield at all, so personal bank accounts and property can be attached, subject only to the Section 60 CPC exemptions.

Sometimes tracing shows the debtor has moved assets into a group company or a relative's name. Then the route is a challenge to the transfer itself. You can't simply attach the transferee's other property. That challenge needs evidence of timing and intent, which is why the asset file notes the date of every transfer we find.

What if asset tracing turns up nothing?

Sometimes the honest answer is that there's nothing reachable today. But a decree stays executable for 12 years. A debtor with nothing now may buy property, win a contract or get paid later. It's worth rerunning the public searches every six months or so, and asking the executing court for a fresh affidavit of assets if things change.

Where a company debtor owes Rs 1 crore or more and has effectively stopped trading, people sometimes raise an IBC insolvency application. Go in with open eyes. Insolvency is a collective process for all creditors, not a collection tool for you alone, and admission puts your execution on hold. NCLT procedure is explained on our network site ncltlawyers.in. If the business has just shut its doors, our guide on recovering money from a debtor who has shut his business walks through the options that remain.

Execution is easier when assets were secured during the suit. If you've another claim pending against the same group, think about attachment before judgment in that suit. Don't wait for a second decree.

What to do this week

If you don't have the certified copy of the decree yet, apply for it, and check it against the judgment. Pull your bank statements for the whole period you dealt with the debtor. Mark every payment it made and the bank it came from. Gather its cheques, invoices, e-way bills and purchase orders, and write down every address, customer and project name in them. If the debtor is a company, look it up on the MCA portal.

Keep what you find to yourself. Debtors who learn that a particular account or property has been spotted tend to move it, fast. If you're still talking, set a short written deadline and have the petition ready to file the day it expires.

An execution lawyer in Delhi can only build the petition from what you hand over, so send everything, even papers that look trivial. If you'd like your decree and records looked at with an execution petition in mind, share them with Advocate B.K. Singh's team through the contact page.