MAYA RANI HALDER Vs. MRITYUNJOY KAYAL AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revisional application is directed against the order no. 87 dated January 3, 2015 passed by the learned Civil Judge (Senior Division), Diamond Harbour in Title Suit No. 132 of 1996, by which the objection to the valuation report was rejected and simultaneously the valuation report was accepted by the Trial Court.

(2.) Admittedly the stranger purchasers filed a suit for partition against the remaining co-sharer, which was decreed in preliminary form. After the preliminary decree is passed, an application under Section 4 of the Partition Act, 1893 was taken out on 5th May, 2001 seeking to preempt the share of the stranger purchasers and undertake to buy the same at the market price. The said application, which was taken out on 5th May, 2001 took nearly seven years to get it disposed of by an order dated 3rd September, 2008. It further appears that several reminders were given by the Court to the Collector, 24- Parganas (South) to submit the report as to the market value of the property, which could only see the light of the day on 17th July, 2013 indicating the market value at Rs. 10,37,569/-. Apart from a Memo No. 163 dated 3.6.2013 the said report is silent as to whether such market value has been ascertained on the date of the said Memo or on the date when the petitioner applied to purchase the share of the stranger purchasers before the Trial Court.

(3.) Though the judgement of a Division Bench of this Court rendered in case of Monomohan Saha vs. Usha Rani Ghosh, 1979 AIR(Cal) 79 was cited before the Trial Court, the Trial Court misconstrued the ratio laid down therein and misinterpreted the provisions contained under Section 4 of the Partition Act, 1893 while rejecting the objection and accepting the valuation report. Before proceeding to deal with the point canvassed before this Court, it would be profitable to quote Section 4 of the said Act, which runs thus: