BONALA LAKSHMAIAH Vs. SAGU PULLAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition to revise the judgment and order of the additional District Judge, in C. M. A. No. 1/56 confirming the judgment and order of the Subordinate Judge, Narsaraopet in I. P. No. 9 of 1954, adjudicating the 4th respondent herein as an insolvent.

(2.) For the sake of convenience, the parties herein are referred to by their denomination in I. P. No. 9/54 on the file of the subordinate Judges Court, Narsaraopet.

(3.) The relevant facts of the case may be briefly stated. Two petitioners (creditors) filed I. P. No. 9 of 1954 in the court of the Subordinate Judge, Narasaraopet against four respondents praying for an adjudication of the first and second respondents as insolvent. They relied for the insolvency on the fact that the first respondent was unable to pay his debts and that he executed a fraudulent sale deed for Ac. 2-15 cents in favour of the third respondent on 23-11-1953 and that in order to defeat the creditors, he suffered a collusive decree in O. S. No. 279/1953 filed by the fourth respondent. The first respondent himself admitted in his counter that he was unable to discharge his debts. The second and third respondents remained ex parte. The fourth respondent contested the application inter alia that the alleged debts were not true, that they were set up by the first respondent in order to thwart the execution of the decree obtained by him, that the first respondent had means to discharge his debt and that the Insolvency petition should be dismissed. During the course of the enquiry, one of the creditors of the fourth respondent filed I. A. No. 736 of 1955 under Section 16 of the Provincial Insolvency Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) to add him as a party on the ground that the second petitioner, colluding with the first respondent, was not proving his debts and prosecuting the petition, and therefore, he as creditor to whom the first respondent owed Rs. 600.00 should be added as a petitioner. Thereupon, he got himself impleaded as the third petitioner. In the counter then filed by the fourth respondent, he did not allege that the petition was being filed out of time and could not be entertained. The learned Subordinate Judge found that the first respondent was indebted to the first and third petitioners to an extent of over Rs. 500.00 and that the acts of insolvency had been proved and adjudicated the first respondent alone as insolvent. The fourth respondent preferred C.M.A. No. 1 of 1956 in the Court of the Additional District Judge, Guntur, who confirmed the order of the trial court. Hence this revision.