KRISHNA KISHOR PODDAR Vs. SOWDAMINI CHOWDRAIN AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I have very little to add to what I stated when these cases ware referred. It appears to me to be clear that the plaintiff is not entitled to recover back his purchase-money. When he purchased under the execution, no title was guaranteed to him. All that was guaranteed to him under clause 7, section 3 of Regulation VII of 1825, was that he should have the rights and interests in the lands, whatever they might be, which belonged to the judgment-debtor. In other words, he was guaranteed that the judgment-debtor should not recover back the lands. In this case the sale was completed, and everything was done which was tantamount to a conveyance," and the sale has not been set aside. In an ordinary case between vendor and purchaser, if the conveyance has been actually executed by all the necessary parties, and the purchaser is evicted by a title to which the covenants do not extend, he cannot recover the purchase-money either at law or in equity: Sugden on Vendors and Purchasers, page 441. There is a great distinction between the case of a purchaser being evicted by title paramount, and that of the conveyance by the vendors being set aside. In the one case the owner of the land recovers notwithstanding the conveyance, because it was a conveyance of his land by a person who had no right to convey it; in the other case, where a sale has been set aside, the purchaser usually has a right to recover back his purchase-money, because it would be inequitable that the vendor should retain the purchase-money when there are grounds for setting aside the Bale by which the contract is put an end to. But a Court of Equity does not set aside a conveyance, simply because the conveying party had no title to the property. There must be something more, such as fraud or the like, to induce the Court to interfere in that manner. A purchaser at a sale in execution knows that all that he purchases is the right and title of the judgment-debtor. He knows that no one guarantees to him that the judgment-debtor has a good title, and he purchases the property with his eyes open, and regulates the price which he bids for the land with reference to the circumstances under which he is purchasing, and the risk he runs.

(2.) The decision of the lower Court is reversed with costs.

(3.) I understand that the sale in this case was made under Regulation VII of 1825, and not under Act VIII of 1859. I also understand that in this case the sale was not set aside for irregularity, but it was simply declared in a regular suit instituted by a third party that the sate passed nothing. I therefore entirely concur in the judgment, which has just been delivered by the Chief Justice that a suit by the purchaser to recover the purchase-money will not lie.