CHINTALA VENKATASUBBIAH (DIED) Vs. KATTAPALLI AKAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal comes before us on account of a difference of opinion between Jackson and Thiruvenkatachariar, JJ., upon one point.

(2.) The facts of the case are as follows:The appellant bid at a Court sale, his bid was accepted, but he failed to pay the 25 per cent. deposit as is prescribed by Order 21, Rule 84, Civil Procedure Code. Having defaulted in the payment of the deposit, a fresh proclamation was issued and a re-sale of the property held. This sale resulted in a deficiency of Rs. 630 and the appellant was ordered under Order 21, Rule 71, Civil Procedure Code, to make good the deficiency. He objects to that order on the ground that the sale was not held forthwith to use the word which appears in Order 21, Rule 84, Civil Procedure Code, which provides that upon failure of a bidder to pay the 25 per cent. deposit the property shall forthwith be resold. The sale at which the appellant defaulted was held on the 1 September, 1923, and closed at 5 p.m. that day. The appellant, as before stated, failed to pay the 25 per cent. deposit; the next day and the day after that were holidays and on the 4 September a fresh proclamation was directed to be issued proclaiming the property for sale and the sale was held on the 5 November, 1923, and resulted, as before stated, in a deficiency.

(3.) The District Munsif, before whom the matter came, after going in detail Unto the facts and into the law, seems to us, to have come to the conclusion that although a fresh proclamation was not obligatory, it was necessary in the interests, of the defaulting bidder to proclaim the property again for sale. We may say at once that we think that in the interests of the defaulting bidder it was necessary for the property to be again pro claimed for sale. Had the property been put for sale on the 4 September, clearly there would have been no notice to prospective bidders and very likely no bidder would have attended the sale at all. In the Lower Appellate Court, however, the District Judge took the view that, where a bidder defaults in payment of the deposit, the property cannot be re-sold unless there has been a fresh proclamation of sale; and he held upon that basis that, as the sale of the property had to be freshly proclaimed, the sale had been held forthwith.