Receiver appointment must be lawful: company cannot act as receiver, so managing director was substituted for vessel management.

A corporate body is not a lawful appointee as receiver of a vessel in interlocutory proceedings under Order 40 Rule 1 CPC, and that appointment was therefore unsustainable. Where the articles of association named the managing director for the relevant managerial role, the court substituted that individual as receiver and directed continuation of the existing management and accounts arrangements.

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Issues: Whether a company could validly be appointed as receiver for the management of a vessel pending suit, and whether such appointment should be substituted by the managing director named in the articles of association.

Analysis: The dispute arose in interlocutory proceedings concerning possession and operation of the vessel pending a suit for rendition of accounts. The court below had appointed the company itself as receiver under Order 40, Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. A corporate body is not a fit or lawful appointee as receiver of property in such circumstances, and the proposed appointment was therefore unsustainable. Since the articles of association specifically named the managing director for the relevant managerial role, the proper course was to appoint that individual to act as receiver and to continue the directions already issued for management and accounts.

Conclusion: The appointment of the company as receiver was set aside and replaced by the appointment of the managing director as receiver.

Ratio Decidendi: A company, being a corporate body, is not a lawful appointee as receiver, and where the governing articles provide for a named managing director, the court may substitute that individual as receiver if the circumstances so require.

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