REPAKA MAMILLAYYA Vs. ADDEPALLI VENKATARATNAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal and the revision petition are against an order of the lower appellate Court setting aside a Court-sale. We shall confirm that order with reference to our powers under Section 151, Civil Procedure Code; and it is therefore necessary to state fully the facts which justify our taking that exceptional course.

(2.) During the progress of the Court sale in question the sons of the judgment-debtor, here respondent, filed a suit for partition of the property and obtained an interim injunction staying the sale. That injunction is not before us; but it is not alleged that it was not in the ordinary form. After the injunction had been granted, an attempt seems to have been made to serve it on the decree-holder; but he had left the Court, although (as appears) his Vakil was still, there and took part in the proceedings next to be referred to.

(3.) Those proceedings consisted in an application by the judgment-debtor for the adjournment of the sale on the ground that "the bidders had come and gone away thinking that the auction would not take place." The application was heard at once in the presence of the decree-holder's Vakil. The judgment-debtor, who was not the party who had obtained the injunction, did not rely on it directly in the first instance, but simply refer-ed this application for adjournment; and his rejection of it is the irregularity or, as the lower appellate Court has held the illegality relied on as a ground for setting aside the sale, which was later in the day completed.