R. RAGHU Vs. G.M. KRISHNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition is filed challenging an order dtd. 28/9/2015 passed by the I Additional District Judge, Bengaluru Rural District, Bengaluru (henceforth referred to as 'District Court') in Misc.No.157/2014, by which it set aside the auction sale of an immovable agricultural land in Sy.No.67 of Agara village, Kengeri Hobli, Bengaluru South Taluk, on the ground that the auction purchaser had played fraud upon the Court.

(2.) The facts are though short and simple but the proceedings are long drawn and elaborate. Thus, to avoid undue verbosity, the facts collated from concluded proceedings are sewn and summed up as follows:

(3.) An execution petition in Execution Petition No.33/2000 was filed by Karnataka State Financial Corporation (henceforth referred to as 'KSFC') to execute an order in Misc.No.52/1996 to recover a sum of Rs.2,61,28,017.0057. An agricultural land measuring 5 1/2 acres in Sy.No.67 of Agara village, being one of the properties shown in the schedule to the execution petition, was brought for sale. A sale at the spot was purportedly held, where the bid of an individual (Petitioner) was the highest at Rs.15,05,000.0000. The Court felt the bid to be very less having regard to the potentiality of the land as it lay very close to Bengaluru City. A sale in the Court was held soon thereafter and the individual at the spot sale (petitioner) was the only bidder. When the Court expressed the inadequacy of the price, he offered to enhance his bid by a sum of Rs.3,00,000.0000, which was accepted and the sale was declared. The petitioner deposited 25% of the bid on 19/4/2003 and the remaining 75% on 27/5/2003. An application was filed in the execution petition by "Ved Vignan Maha Vidyapeeth Charitable Trust" (henceforth referred to as "Trust") for issuance of a sale certificate and the affidavit was sworn to by the petitioner himself, who claimed that the Trust had purchased the land. The executing Court allowed the application and a sale certificate was issued in favour of the petitioner on 9/9/2005. The judgment debtor (respondent No.1 herein) filed an application for setting aside the sale on various grounds, which was rejected by the executing Court on 16/1/2006 and confirmed by this Court in MFA No.7981/2006 on 18/4/2007 and Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) Nos.15832-15834/2007 were dismissed on 14/9/2007. In the meanwhile, the judgment debtor (respondent No.1 herein) conveyed land in a few other survey numbers to his wife Smt.Arathi Krishna, in terms of a gift deed dtd. 28/1/2006. Later, he initiated proceedings for survey and identification of those lands on the ground that the boundaries mentioned in the sale certificate issued by the executing Court comprised of not only Sy.No.67 that was sold in execution but also other survey numbers namely Sy.No.71/2A, 179 that were not sold. The attempt at survey of Sy.No.67 was spurned but the survey of other survey numbers was kept open in W.P.No.2173/2006. Later an attempt to survey Sy.No.71/2A met with initial success, in as much as the surveyor found that boundaries mentioned in the auction sale certificate encompassed not only Sy.No.67 but also Sy.No.71/2A and the Tahsildar directed the petitioner to handover 4-34 acres of land to the respondent No.1 and his wife. This was challenged by the petitioner in W.P.No.52691/2014 and W.P.No.54468/2014 and this Court directed the parties to approach the Civil Court, which was confirmed by the Division Bench in W.A.Nos.1094/2015, 1096/2015 and 2175/2015.