YANATI VENKATARAGHAVAMMA Vs. BYRISETTY SINGARAYYA SETTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against an order refusing to set aside a sale in execution. Only two of the grounds urged before the Lower Court are pressed here. The first is that bidders were scared away by a notification issued at the sale itself, warning them that the appellant's daughter's claim to the property had been dismissed and that she had filed a suit. Reliance is placed on some observations by Seshagiri Aiyar, J., in Venkataratnam V/s. Ranganayakamma (1918) I.L.R. 41 M. 985 at 997 : 35 M.L.J. 335 (F.B.) on the undesirability of issuing such warnings. With great respect we must express our dissent. Rule 66 (2) (e) of Order 21, Civil Procedure Code, directs the Court to specify "every other thing which the Court considers material for a purchaser to know in order to judge the nature and value of the property". In this instance, the Court thought that it was material for intending buyers to know that the property was under litigation and directed the Amin to give them that information and we think that it was entirely justified in doing so. Nor does the complaint come very well from the appellant, for it seems tolerably obvious that it is she that is responsible for her daughter's effort to defeat or delay the decree and the sale under it.

(2.) The next complaint is that the sale was illegal as it was adjourned for over seven days. What happened was that the sale went on from day to day continuously from 18 to 29 April which was neither illegal nor irregular. It was not adjourned in the proper sense of the word. The Judge was, no doubt, absent for three days, while the sale was going on, but it appears that he had issued a general order that all sales were to continue till his return.

(3.) We find that both points against the appellant. Assuming that there had been irregularities, it is for her to show that they caused her substantial injury. She complains that land worth Rs. 40,000 was sold for Rs. 6,000 odd. On the evidence, no doubt, it appears that the land might have been worth about Rs. 40,000, had the title been clear, but what was the position? The appellant's daughter had filed a suit claiming the property. The appellant was supporting her by admitting that her own title was defective. She had, further, before the sale, alienated nearly one-third of the property to two of her relations. Under the circumstances, if it fetched much less than its value, the fault would appear to be her own and no one else s. We dismiss the appeal with costs.