NAGIREDDI POTHURAJU Vs. MISSULA VEERA VENKATA SATYANARAYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition to revise an order passed by the Additional Subordinate Judge, Vizagapatam, directing the sale of a rice mill in open auction on an application filed by the respondent who was the plaintiff in a suit for dissolution of a partnership firm, whose only business was the running of this rice mill. The suit was filed in 1935 and first dismissed on the ground that the plaintiff was not a partner. The plaintiff, however, succeeded in an appeal, A.S. No. 43 of 1940 judgment in which was delivered in February, 1941. Since then, the matter is said to have been pending before a Commissioner appointed to take accounts. In 1948, the plaintiff applied for the sale of the mill, which is now under lease to a third party by the first defendant for Rs. 4,000 for a period of one ear. The first defendant claims to have purchased the interests of the other partners and to hold a preponderant interest in the mill amounting to a 4/5th share. The plaintiff's right to a 1/5th share has been declared and the learned Subordinate Judge proceeded on this basis. Though he strove to bring the parties together and make them agree to some reasonable method of determining the value of the plaintiff's 1/5th share, he was unable to do so and directed the sale of the entire mill in open auction, overruling the strenuous protests of the first defendant. The plaintiff in his affidavit in support of his application valued the mill at Rs. 30,000 whereas the first defendant valued it only at Rs. 15,000. The first defendant appears to be genuinely anxious about retaining the mill for himself and also purchasing the plaintiff's share; and with this end in view he went to the length of accepting the petitioner's valuation of the mill at Rs. 30,000 and offering to pay him Rs. 6,000 as his 1/5th share. Even this the plaintiff refused on the ground that if the mill was sold in public auction, it was likely to fetch even more than the valuation he put on it in his affidavit.

(2.) ONE of the objections taken by the first defendant: is that the learned Subordinate Judge did not go into one of his contentions, namely, that the site on which the mill stood belonged to him, though the mill building was a partnership asset. It is common ground that the preliminary judgment in the partition suit did not determine this point. It is not adverted to in the lower Court's order, although it appears as one of the grounds of objection in the counter and is also made a ground for revision. Until this point is decided, a sale of the entire mill and the site will merely lead to future complications. I have heard the parties at length and I am satisfied that the plaintiff is taking an unreasonable attitude in going to the length of rejecting the offer by the first defendant to accept even his own valuation of the mill.

(3.) I direct the first respondent to pay the petitioner the costs of this petition with minimum advocate's fee.