Self-contained tax recovery procedure bars civil court challenge to arrears notices where section 47 CPC was not properly invoked.

The Income-tax Act's self-contained recovery machinery governed the dispute, so a civil court could not entertain a parallel challenge to notices issued for tax arrears. Questions relating to execution, discharge or satisfaction of the recovery certificate had to be decided by the Tax Recovery Officer under the Second Schedule, except on a fraud allegation, and section 232 did not displace that special procedure. The bank also failed to show that the judgment-debtor was properly affected or that the matter was a representative proceeding under section 47 CPC. The challenge was therefore outside civil court competence and the appeal was incompetent.

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Issues: Whether the appellant-bank could maintain the civil appeal challenging the Income-tax Officer's notices issued for recovery of tax arrears, and whether the dispute was cognizable by the civil court or under section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

Analysis: The recovery provisions in Chapter XVII of the Income-tax Act, 1961 empower the Income-tax Officer to issue notice to persons holding money due to the assessee and, on default, treat them as assessees in default. Paragraph 9 of the Second Schedule requires questions relating to execution, discharge or satisfaction of a certificate to be decided by the Tax Recovery Officer and not by suit, save on the ground of fraud. Section 232 preserves other recovery remedies but does not dilute the special statutory mechanism for tax recovery. On the pleadings, the appellant-bank had not laid the foundation to show that the judgment-debtor was affected or that the dispute arose as a representative proceeding under section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. In substance, the contest was outside the civil court's competence and, even otherwise, did not furnish a maintainable section 47 appeal.

Conclusion: The challenge to the tax recovery notices was not maintainable before the civil court, and the appeal was incompetent.

Final Conclusion: The statutory tax recovery machinery prevailed over the bank's attempt to invoke civil court jurisdiction, so the appeal failed at the threshold.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the Income-tax Act, 1961 provides a self-contained procedure for recovery and expressly bars determination by suit of questions relating to execution, discharge or satisfaction of the recovery certificate, the civil court cannot entertain a parallel challenge, and a party not properly shown to be within section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 cannot maintain an appeal on that basis.

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