PRASANNA KACHARI AND ORS. Vs. DEWAN GARJAN ALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application under Section 31, Assam Land and Revenue Regulation (which is numbered as a revenue appeal) for setting aside the sale with respect to 14B. 4 K and 9 Lechas of land covered by periodic patta No. 7 of village Barsapara, Mouza Beltola on the ground of hardship and injustice. The sale took place on 27 -10 -49 for arrears of revenue for the years 1353, 1354 and 1355 B. S. the annual revenue with the local rates amounting to Rs. 12/2/ - and the total sum due being Rs. 37/6/ - only. The appellants' case was that the land originally belonged to their father Bhubaneswar Kachari but after he was dead, there was no registration of their names with respect to the patta and no attempt was made to realise the defaulted revenue from them by attachment of moveables as provided under Section 69, Land and Revenue Regulation. There was a further allegation that no sale proclamation was served on the locality and the petitioners were kept out of knowledge of the revenue sale.

(2.) THE only point for consideration therefore is whether the application which had been filed more than two years after the sale took place could be entertained and relief given under Section 31, Land and Revenue Regulation, which provides that such an application should be made within one year of the sale becoming final under Section 30 of the Regulation. Section 80 of the Regulation provides that a sale on which the purchase money has been paid as directed in Section 78, and against which no application under Section 78A or Section 79 has been preferred shall subject to the provision of Sections 81 and 82 be final at noon of the sixtieth day from the day of sale, reckoning the said day of sale as the first of the said sixty days. According to this provision, the sale would be final on or about 26 -12 -1949 and the application under Section 81 would be competent if only filed on or about 2 -1 -1951 at the latest.

(3.) IN this case, looking to the particular set of facts and circumstances of the case, we are inclined to hold that the auction -purchaser so manipulated as to purchase the land for a nominal price and if we look to the defects in procedure, we are inclined to think that he was acting in concert with the clerk, if not with the Mouzadar, in bringing the property to sale for a nominal price. The Supreme Court case reported in - - Yeshwant Deorao v. Walchand Ramchand : AIR 1951 SC 16 (F), contains an observation on fraud which I reproduce below: