Harries, C.J.This is a petition for revision of orders passed by the Courts below convicting the J petitioners of an offence u/s 424, Penal Code, and sentencing each of them to three months rigorous imprisonment.

2. The charge against the petitioners was that they had fraudulently removed a pair of buffaloes which had been attached in execution of a decree in a rent suit. The petitioners pleaded not guilty and alleged that the story had been concocted by the Village Magistrate and that they had been falsely implicated out of enmity.

3. The trial Magistrate held that the accused had rescued these buffaloes which had been attached and further held that the attachment of the animals was perfectly lawful. The removal, therefore, was an offence u/s 424, Penal Code. The petitioners appealed, and a learned Appellate Magistrate affirmed the conviction and sentences.,

4. Before the Courts below and before mein revision it has been urged that the warrant of attachment in this case was not a proper one and that no legal attachment could be effected under it. It is an admitted fact that in the warrant no person was named as the person who was to execute it. In fact, it was a blank warrant addressed to no one. In such circumstances it is urged that the warrant was illegal and no valid execution could be made under it. Reliance was placed by counsel for the petitioners on the case in Fattu and Others Vs. Emperor in which a Bench held that a warrant must be issued to some person for execution and where no name or description of that person is given in the warrant, the person arrested can have no knowledge that the persons who present the warrant are legally authorized to do so. It is immaterial that the person who, is arrested is unable to read the warrant and has no knowledge as to whether the warrant is or is not properly filled up but it is the duty of the Court to issue a warrant in proper form, and where a warrant is incomplete the subsequent release of a person arrested under such a warrant is not an offence u/s 225B, Penal Code. This case is directly in point, and I think I should follow it. That being so, I hold that the warrant issued by the Bent Court in this case was an illegal one and that the bullocks were not legally attached as a result of it.

5. The matter, however, does not rest there, because the warrant was admittedly undated. The warrant had been hurriedly filled up by a clerk who, apparently, had to prepare. 200 warrants on the day in question. Where the date should appear, there are figures "17/2" which would suggest 17th February of some year, but the year is entirely omitted, and anybody seeing the warrant would be quite unable to say whether the time for the execution of the same had passed. A Bench of this Court has held in Mohini Mohan Banerji v. Emperor AIR 1916 Pat. 272 that a warrant of execution which does not bear a date on or before which it should be executed is not a good warrant and that it is no offence to resist the execution of a bad warrant, or to obstruct the execution of a warrant, by a person to whom it is not directed. At p. 272 Atkinson, J., who delivered the judgment of the Court observed:

Order 21, Rule 24 prescribes what are the essentials necessary in the execution of a decree and Sub-clause (3) of Rule 24 provides that:

In every such process a day shall be specified on or before which it shall be executed. This warrant contains no specified day upon which or before which it should be executed, it is absolutely blank in point of time, uncertain, and would operate as a continuing authority indefinitely. In our view, the case in Sheikh Naseer v. Emperor 37 Cal. 122 [LQ/CalHC/1909/453] clearly applies to this case, and we adopt the judgment of the learned Judges there, who laid down:

That it was material that the warrant should bear a date on or before which it might be executed.

6. This Patna Bench case binds me, and I am bound to hold that this warrant was also illegal by reason of the fact that it bore no date on or before which it should be executed. As the warrant was illegal, the removal of the cattle attached cannot amount to an offence u/s 424, Penal Code, as the cattle were never legally attached.

7. In my view, the petitioners in this case committed no offence and were wrongly convicted. I therefore allow this petition, set aside their convictions and sentences and make the rule absolute. The bail bonds of the petitioners are discharged forthwith.

8. I would like to draw the attention of persons responsible for the issuing of warrants to this case and to the decisions to which I have referred. The warrant issued in the present case was bad on a number of grounds, and it is not sufficient to produce other materials to show what was the date of the warrant and to whom it was addressed. The person to whom the warrant is addressed must be named on the face of the warrant, and it must be apparent from the face of the warrant when it can be legally executed. The present warrant could have been executed any year for the next hundred years or more. Care must be taken to see that documents such as these are properly filled up.