How to Execute a Decree and Actually Get Paid

Executing a decree: the quick answer

You file an execution petition in the court that passed the decree, or, after getting the decree transferred, in the court where the debtor's property is. The petition sets out how much is due with interest and costs. Then it asks the court to use one or more of the modes of execution in Section 51 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC): attaching and selling property, attaching bank accounts and debts owed to the debtor, appointing a receiver, or, in limited cases, arrest and detention in civil prison.

The detail sits in Order XXI of the CPC, which runs to more than a hundred rules. You don't need to know them all. In practice three things matter. File in the right court. Point the court to real assets it can reach. And deal fast with the objections the debtor is going to raise. Most execution cases that get stuck do so because the decree holder asked for property to be attached that turned out to be mortgaged, already sold, or owned by someone else.

Execution is a separate proceeding from the suit. New number, new dates, often a different judge. Winning the suit doesn't set it off automatically. Until you file, nothing happens. The debtor knows that.

Judgment, decree, decree sheet: what you need in hand first

The judgment is the court's reasoning. The decree is the formal order drawn from it, saying who pays whom, how much, at what interest and with what costs. You execute the decree, not the judgment. In the Delhi district courts and the Delhi High Court, the registry prepares the decree sheet after judgment, and that can take a few weeks. Check that the amount, interest rate, interest period and names on it match the judgment. If a figure on the decree sheet is wrong, you fix it by applying to the court that passed it. The executing court can't.

Apply for a certified copy of the judgment and decree the day judgment is pronounced. You'll need it for the execution petition. You'll also need it if the debtor appeals. Plenty of courts now take e-filed execution petitions with a copy downloaded from the court website, but the registry may still ask for a certified copy, so it's easier to have one.

If the debtor has paid anything after the decree, outside court, write down the dates and amounts. Order XXI Rule 2 says payments made outside court have to be certified to the court, and your petition must give credit for them. Hide a part payment and you'll lose the court's patience very quickly.

What to gather for an execution petition

• A certified copy of the judgment and the decree sheet, or whatever copy the registry accepts for e-filing
• Your working of the amount due: principal, interest at the decreed rate up to the filing date, and the costs awarded
• Every payment that came in after the decree, with dates, so you can give credit for it
• The debtor's full legal name and current address; for a company, the CIN and registered office from MCA records
• Which banks and branches the debtor uses (look at old cheques, payments you received, GST invoices, letterheads)
• Addresses and details of any immovable property, with whatever title document, khasra number or property ID you can find
• The debtor's own customers, or anyone else who owes it money, if you want those payments attached
• Vehicle numbers, machinery, the godown where stock is kept, and other movables you know about
• Vakalatnama for your advocate and, if you're a company, a board resolution or authority letter
• Where any appeal stands, and a copy of any stay order

Which court executes the decree, and where you file

Section 38 of the CPC says a decree can be executed by the court that passed it, or by the court it's sent to for execution. If the debtor and its property are within the local limits of the decree court, you file there. A decree from a Commercial Court in a Delhi district is executed by that same Commercial Court. A decree from the Commercial Division of the Delhi High Court on its original side is executed in the High Court itself, by an execution petition.

Property somewhere else? Then you ask the decree court to transfer the decree under Section 39 to the court where the property lies or where the debtor lives or works. Section 39(4) makes it clear that the decree court can't itself go after property outside its limits. So a Saket decree against a company whose only factory is in Sahibabad usually has to be sent to the court in Ghaziabad. Transfer takes anything from a few weeks to a few months. If you're worried the property will be sold meanwhile, Section 46 lets the decree court issue a precept. That's an order to the other court to attach the property for a limited period while the transfer goes through.

Where assets are spread over Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, it's common to run execution in more than one court at once, telling each court what's been recovered elsewhere so nobody recovers twice. The Delhi district commercial courts, the Ghaziabad commercial court and the courts at Gurugram and Faridabad each have their own registry habits for transferred decrees. The papers have to be adjusted for each.

Executing a money decree, step by step

This is how it usually runs for a money decree against a business in Delhi NCR. If something needs attaching urgently, the order changes.

1. Check the decree and whether there's an appeal

   Make sure the decree sheet is right and find out if an appeal has been filed. An appeal doesn't stop execution unless the appellate court grants a stay. Under Order XLI Rule 5, a stay of a money decree usually comes with a condition that the debtor deposit the amount or give security.

2. Find the debtor's assets

   Before you file, list bank accounts, property, receivables, vehicles and stock. Use the MCA portal for charges registered against a company, GST details on invoices, property records, and whatever you know from your own dealings. A petition that names specific assets moves. One that asks the court to go and find them doesn't.

3. Draft and file the execution petition

   Order XXI Rule 11(2) sets out what goes in: suit number, parties, date of decree, any appeal, payments received, amount due with interest and costs, and what you want the court to do. Attach the list of assets. File in the decree court, or ask for a transfer if the assets are elsewhere.

4. Notice to the judgment debtor

   If more than two years have passed since the decree, or you're executing against a legal representative, the court has to issue notice under Order XXI Rule 22 before going further. Even where it isn't strictly needed, many courts issue notice at the first hearing anyway. The debtor may pay now. Or ask for time. Or object.

5. Ask for an affidavit of assets

   Order XXI Rule 41 lets the court direct the debtor, or an officer of a debtor company, to disclose assets on affidavit and be examined in court. Since Rahul S. Shah v. Jinendra Kumar Gandhi (Supreme Court, 2021), courts ask for this as a matter of routine. A false or evasive affidavit can lead to further orders, civil detention included.

6. Attachment orders

   The court issues warrants or orders attaching bank accounts, debts owed to the debtor, movable property or immovable property. Banks are told to freeze the account up to the decretal amount. Immovable property is attached by an order prohibiting transfer. It's proclaimed and published.

7. Fight the objections

   The debtor may object under Section 47 that the decree can't be executed. Third parties may claim the attached property under Order XXI Rule 58. The executing court decides both after hearing each side. This is usually where most of the time goes.

8. Payment out, sale or settlement

   Money from frozen accounts or garnished debts is paid into court and released to you on application. Attached property that isn't redeemed gets valued and sold by public auction under the court's supervision. Plenty of debtors settle once their accounts are frozen. The settlement is recorded with the court and the execution closed.

Turn up on every date of the execution case. Executing courts dismiss for non-prosecution more readily than trial courts do, and a dismissed execution petition has to be revived or filed all over again.

How the court can make the debtor pay

• Attaching bank accounts. If you know the bank, this is the fastest route. The court orders the bank to freeze the account up to the amount due, and later to send the money to court. Give the branch if you can, because a general order to a head office takes longer to act on.
• Garnishee orders on money owed to the debtor. Under Order XXI Rules 46A to 46I, the court can tell someone who owes the debtor money (a customer, a tenant, another business) to pay it into court instead. That third party gets notice and can dispute the debt.
• Attaching and selling immovable property. Land, a flat, a shop or a factory building can be attached under Order XXI Rule 54 and auctioned. It's slow and needs clean title. Any bank already holding a mortgage gets paid ahead of you.
• Attaching movables. The court's bailiff can seize stock, machinery and vehicles. Seizure is rarely carried all the way through, because storing the stuff is costly. The threat alone often brings the debtor to the table.
• Salary and other income. If the debtor is an individual on a salary, part of it can be attached. Section 60 of the CPC protects a large share of salary and certain other items, so this mostly helps against people with steady, higher incomes.
• A receiver. The court can appoint a receiver to collect rent or business income and pay it into court. Handy when the debtor's business is clearly earning but nothing ever sits in its own accounts. There's more on our court receiver page.
• Arrest and civil detention. Section 51 and Order XXI Rules 37 to 40 allow the court to detain a debtor who has the means to pay and won't, or who is hiding or shifting assets. Courts use it sparingly, and only after notice and inquiry. Being unable to pay isn't a ground on its own. And detention doesn't wipe out the debt.

Finding the money: asset tracing that actually works

The court won't go hunting for the debtor's assets. You have to point at them. When an execution file comes to Advocate B.K. Singh, his first question to the client is a plain one: the last time this debtor paid you, which bank did the money come from? That one detail often leads straight to a live account.

Public sources help. The MCA portal gives a company's registered office, directors, financial statements and registered charges. The GST portal shows registration status and principal place of business. Then there are state land records and sub-registrar records for property in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, and vehicle registration records. Your own file matters just as much: purchase orders, delivery challans with godown addresses, emails that mention the debtor's customers, old cheques.

In Rahul S. Shah (2021), the Supreme Court told trial courts to ask defendants to disclose assets on affidavit even while the suit is still pending, and told executing courts to use Order XXI Rule 41 actively. If your suit is still on and you think the defendant is emptying its accounts, ask for that disclosure now. Think about attachment before judgment under Order XXXVIII as well. Execution is far easier when assets were secured during the suit.

Execution stage by stage: time and costs

How long execution takes, and why it drags

In Rahul S. Shah, the Supreme Court directed that execution proceedings be decided ordinarily within six months of filing, with reasons recorded if more time is needed, and it has come back to that concern since. Executing courts have become more active as a result, especially in Delhi. But six months is a target. It isn't a guarantee. A bank account attachment against a company with money can produce cash in weeks. A contested auction of property with disputed title can take two years.

The delays are predictable. The debtor objects that the decree is a nullity or has already been satisfied. A relative or an associate company says the attached property is theirs. An appeal is filed with a stay application. Notice can't be served because the company has shifted. Every one of these has an answer. The answer's much easier if you planned for it at filing, say by attaching the MCA master data showing the registered office, or title records showing the debtor as owner.

Decree holders slow things down too. Missing dates costs months. So does filing without an asset list, or asking for the debtor's arrest as your opening move. Courts respond well to a petition that's specific, gets the figures right and asks for realistic things.

Interest after the decree, and how much you can recover

Section 34 of the CPC is where decree interest usually comes from, and it covers two stretches of time: the life of the suit (pendente lite) and the period from decree to payment. For commercial transactions, the court can go higher than 6 percent a year, though ordinarily not above the contract rate or what banks charge on loans. Whatever rate the court picked will be on the decree. In your petition, calculate interest to the filing date and then ask for it to continue until realisation. That keeps the meter running. For how the rate gets fixed at trial, read our guide on interest you can claim on unpaid dues.

Costs the decree awarded can be recovered in execution. What you spend on the execution (process fees, auction expenses) is normally added on when the court makes its orders. Hold on to every receipt.

Partial recoveries are adjusted first against costs and interest and only then against principal, unless the decree or an agreement between you says something else. Say the debtor offers a part payment "in full and final settlement". Get any compromise written down and recorded before the court. A verbal understanding made in a corridor tends to resurface later as an objection.

What the debtor will try, and how courts handle it

Objections under Section 47. Any dispute about execution, discharge or satisfaction of the decree is for the executing court to settle. You can't start a fresh suit over it, and neither can the debtor. Expect arguments like "the court had no jurisdiction", "we already paid", or "the figure is wrong". The executing court isn't allowed to go behind the decree or reopen the merits. So objections that are really an attempt to fight the suit again usually go nowhere. They still cost you a few hearings. Our page on objections to execution and attachment goes deeper.

Third-party claims. Order XXI Rule 58 lets anyone who claims to own the attached property object, and the executing court decides that claim itself. Be suspicious of sale deeds or gift deeds dated around the time the suit was filed. If the property was moved to cheat creditors, Section 53 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 lets you attack the transfer.

Appeal and stay. Against a commercial court decree, the appeal is under Section 13 of the Commercial Courts Act, and it has to be filed within 60 days. The appeal alone doesn't stay anything. Where a stay is granted, the appellate court nearly always makes the debtor deposit the decretal amount, or a chunk of it, first. That works in your favour. See our page on commercial appeals.

Setting aside an ex parte decree. Got your decree ex parte? Then an Order IX Rule 13 application is likely. The debtor must prove it was never properly served, or had good enough reason to stay away. Often the court asks for a deposit before it will entertain this.

Executing against a company, firm, LLP or proprietor

Company. When a private limited company loses, you go after what the company owns. The directors' own houses and bank accounts are off limits, unless the decree names them too (as guarantors, say). That doesn't stop the court from calling a director or officer in and questioning them about the company's assets under Order XXI Rule 41. One warning. If the company is in winding up, or in insolvency proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, the moratorium halts execution for as long as it runs.

Partnership firm. A decree passed against a firm in its firm name reaches the firm's property. To reach the partners personally, you need the court's leave under Order XXI Rule 50. We'd ask for it early on. Firms that default rarely keep much in the firm's own name.

LLP. As a rule, an LLP's partners don't answer personally for what the LLP owes. So you're looking at the LLP's own assets, unless some partner signed a personal guarantee.

Proprietorship. In law there's no gap between a proprietorship and its owner. That means the proprietor's own bank accounts and property can be attached. Section 60 still shields salary and some household items.

Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana: how practice differs

In Delhi, you file execution of a district court decree in the same court complex where the suit was heard: Saket, Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Rohini, Dwarka, Patiala House or Rouse Avenue. Delhi courts have e-filing, and orders to banks often go electronically, which speeds up attachment. Decrees of the Delhi High Court Commercial Division are executed on the High Court's original side.

In Uttar Pradesh, decrees transferred to Ghaziabad or Gautam Buddh Nagar go to the court designated as Commercial Court for the district. Land records, khatauni extracts and sub-registrar searches in Ghaziabad and Noida are worth doing. Noida Authority and YEIDA allotments are often leasehold, and that changes how the property can be attached and sold. Get the lease and transfer records from the authority.

In Haryana, the Gurugram and Faridabad courts see a lot of executions against companies registered in Delhi but with factories or offices across the border. Property in HSIIDC industrial estates carries transfer conditions from the allotting authority. Before any auction, the court will usually want to hear what the authority says.

Court fee and process fee schedules aren't the same in the three states. Check the current schedule before filing in each.

Mistakes that slow execution down

• Sitting on the decree. Debtors move money after judgment, and every week you wait there's less left. File once the decree sheet is ready, unless there's a stay.
• No asset list. Ask the court to attach unknown property and you'll get a notice issued to the debtor and not much more.
• Getting the numbers wrong. Interest at the wrong rate or from the wrong date is an invitation to object. Hand in a clean calculation sheet with dates.
• Leading with arrest. Courts see detention as the last resort. Ask for it first and your petition looks like a pressure tactic.
• Forgetting the bank's charge. If a bank has a mortgage on the property, it gets paid first. Look at the MCA charge register and the property records before you pick what to attach.
• Settling on a handshake. A deal with the debtor that isn't recorded before the court is hard to enforce, and very easy for the debtor to deny later.

How long you have to execute a decree

Under Article 136 of the Limitation Act, 1963, a decree (other than one for a perpetual injunction) can be executed within 12 years from the date it becomes enforceable. Don't mix this up with Article 136 of the Constitution, which is about appeals to the Supreme Court. Twelve years sounds generous. In real life delay hurts you, because debtors die, companies get struck off and property changes hands. And as we said above, once two years have passed since the decree, the court has to give the debtor notice under Order XXI Rule 22 before it goes ahead.

Got an old decree that was never executed? It may still be worth chasing if the debtor has picked up assets since. Check the date carefully first. An execution petition filed after 12 years will be dismissed.

Arbitral awards, DRT certificates and insolvency: related routes

An arbitral award is enforced as if it were a decree of the court, under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, once the time to challenge it has run out or any challenge has failed. The steps are much like the ones on this page, and you can file the execution where the assets are. A challenge to the award itself under Section 34 runs on a separate track. Our network site arbitrationlawyer.in covers that.

Banks and financial institutions holding recovery certificates from the Debts Recovery Tribunal enforce them through the Recovery Officer. Not the civil court. It's a different process altogether.

Where a corporate debtor owes Rs 1 crore or more and has defaulted, creditors sometimes think about insolvency proceedings under the IBC instead of execution, or alongside it. Insolvency is a collective process for all creditors, not a recovery tool for one, and once admitted it suspends execution. Whether a decree holder should go that way needs real thought. NCLT procedure is covered on our network site ncltlawyers.in.

What to do this week

If you don't have the certified copy of the judgment and decree yet, apply for it. Find out whether an appeal or stay application has been filed. Write down everything you know about the debtor's money: bank accounts, customers, property, vehicles, the godown address printed on old delivery challans. Do a simple interest calculation from the date in the decree.

If you're still talking to the debtor, give a short written deadline, and keep the execution papers ready to file the day it passes. If settlement looks possible, it can be recorded in the execution itself. That way the court's powers are still there if the instalments stop. Our page on settlement during a case explains how compromises get recorded.

What Advocate B.K. Singh usually tells decree holders is this: the first two months after judgment are the most valuable time in the whole case. Don't waste them. If you'd like your decree and the debtor's details looked at before you file, share them with Advocate B.K. Singh's team through the contact page.