CHOWDHURY MOHAMMAD AMIN Vs. BIJOY CHAND MAHATAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the plaintiff in a suit for recovery of money instituted by the auction- purchaser at a sale under the Patni Regulation, 1819, which was subsequently set aside. The facts material for the determination of the questions raised before us are really not in controversy, and may be briefly recited. Patni Taluk Gopalnagar was sold under Regulation VIII of 1819 on the 15 May 1909, and was purchased by the plaintiff for Rs. 1,000. The father of the plaintiff and others were the patnidars under the defendant, the Maharaja of Burdwan. At the instance of one of the defaulters, who instituted a regular suit on the 14th April 1910, under Section 14 of the Patni Regulation the sale was set aside by the Subordinate Judge on the 22 November, 1911. The purchaser and the zemindar preferred separate appeals to this Court. These appeals were dismissed on the 19 July 1916. The purchaser thereupon instituted the present suit on the 18 July 1919 to recover from the zemindar the following sums of money: (i) Rupees 550 in respect of purchase-money together with interest thereon. (ii) Rent and cess paid by the plaintiff to the defendant during the time that plaintiff was in possession as purchaser. (iii) Costs which the plaintiff had to pay in the High Court in the previous litigation. (iv) The amount given as security by the plaintiff together with damages.

(2.) The defendant expressed his readiness to return the securities mentioned in the fourth item, but denied his liability to pay the amounts covered by the first three items. The Subordinate Judge has dismissed the suit; he has held the claim in respect of the first three items untenable under Section 14 of the Patni Regulation, while he has come to the conclusion that, there was no cause of action for the fourth item.

(3.) Section 14 of the Patni Regulation authorises the institution of a suit against the zemindar for the reversal of a sale and then provides as follows: "The purchaser shall be made a party in such suits and upon decree passing for reversal of the sale, the Court shall be careful to indemnify him against all loss at the charge of the zemindar or person at whose suit the sale may have been made." There is, in our opinion, no room for controversy that the first three items of the claim put forward in tire present action might have been urged in the previous litigation.