A. VELUMANI Vs. ANGAPPA MUDALIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FOLLOWING the decision of the learned Judge, Govindarajachari J. in Official Trustee, Madras v. Sethu Chettiar 1948 -2 Mad LJ 194 : (AIR 1949 Mad 131), this revision petition has to be dismissed. The respondent is a transferee from a debtor who was sought to be adjudicated insolvent by one of the creditor. The court entertained the application of the editor, examined him, accepted the documents filed by him and marked them as Exs. A -1 and A -2 and thereafter said 'Petition is allowed adjudging the respondent insolvent'. Curiously enough the respondent therein did not file an appeal. But the respondent before me and in the lower court in these proceedings being the transferee of the properties of the insolvent and who is really affected by the order of insolvency filed an appeal against the perfunctory order which resulted in the insolvency of his vendor. The lower court rightly appreciated the evidence, accepted the appeal and remitted the matter for a fuller consideration by the insolvency court. The petitioner before me (petitioning -creditor) objected to the maintainability of the appeal by the transferee who is outside, prima facie, the proceedings initiated by him against the insolvent. He would also say that the order of insolvency was passed on merits. But these contentions were not upheld and the appeal was allowed and the mater remitted to the insolvency court for a fuller appraisal and adjudication of the real issue. As against this the present revision petition has been filed.

(2.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner though feebly attempted to maintain that the order of adjudication was made on merits was not able to sustain the same since the non -speaking order of the insolvency Court is neither evident nor self -explanatory. It does not appear from the record that the insolvency court applied its mind to the material placed before it, before it pronounced the order of adjudication. The learned Subordinate Judge who passed the order does not even say that he was prima facie of the view that by such alienations under Exs. A -1 and A -2, the insolvent 'intended to defeat and delay the interests of his creditors'. This observation should find a place in such orders in order to avoid any misgiving at a later stage about the non - application of the mind of the insolvency Court to the facts and circumstances of the case and to the real matter under controversy. Therefore, the order of adjudication has been pronounced in such an unsatisfactory state of affairs. This cannot be disputed by the learned counsel for the petitioner.

(3.) THE relevant and the nearest case which could be cited has been referred to by the learned counsel for the respondent. An eminent Judge of our Court, Govindarajachari J. in Official Trustee, Madras v. Sethu Chettiar, 1948 -2 Mad LJ 194 : (AIR 1949 Mad 131), in an elucidatory and illuminating judgment and after referring to the decision in Alagappa Chettiar v. Vellachami Servai, AIR 1928 Mad 981 (1), held that a person who satisfies the description of the respondent in this revision petition would be an aggrieved person within the meaning of Section 75 of the Act. I am inclined to excerpt certain observations of the learned Judge instead of in any manner lessening the weightage of the observations made by him in the said judgment. After narrating in extenso the English authorities, the learned Judge accepted the view that. "Any person who makes an application to the court for decision or any person who is brought before court to submit to a decision, is, if the decision goes against him, thereby 'a person aggrieved' by that decision." The learned Judge also said that the embarrassment which may result from the order of adjudication provides such embarrassed person with a sufficient grievance and clothes him with the necessary status to question the order of adjudication in an appeal. The involuntary, adjudication of the transferee in the insolvency makes him an affected person. While respectfully adopting the observations made above, I am of the view that the lower court was right when it said that the transferee from the insolvent could maintain the appeal and having regard to the circumstances of the case I uphold the order of remit since the original pronouncement resulting in the adjudication of the insolvent is based on a cryptic non -speaking order. The revision petition is dismissed. There will be no order as to costs. Petition dismissed.