KESHRI MULL Vs. SUKAN RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs brought the suit out of which this appeal arises for a declaration that the disputed properties were purchased by the defendant at an auction-sale on 17 March 1920 in an execution case as an agent of the plaintiffs for the plaintiffs and with the money of the plaintiffs and they also sought for a declaration they were the owners of the disputed properties and were in possession of them and they sought for confirmation of their possession.

(2.) Their case was that the defendant had been their servant or munib and used to look after their litigation, and that they had sent him to Court with instructions to get their pleader to bid for the property of one Kailaspati Singh which was up for sale in Court in execution proceedings on foot of a mortgage decree obtained by the plaintiffs against Kailaspati Singh. The defendant, it is alleged, could not find the pleader and purchased the property in his own name; but it is the plaintiffs case that they paid the earnest money and obtained the sale certificate in the name of the defendant and got his name registered in Register D and have all along been in possession of the properties. Subsequently in 1925 defendant executed a bazidawa in favour of the plaintiffs, but when the plaintiffs sought for mutation in the Land Registration Department, defendant objected, with the result that the application of the plaintiffs was rejected. There were also proceedings under Section 145, Criminal P.C., in respect of certain khudkasht lands within the property which ended adversely to the plaintiffs; hence the suit.

(3.) The case of the defendant was that he had purchased the property for himself, paid the money and had been in possession ever since and that the bazidawa- deed was a nominal transaction to conceal the defendant's ownership of property. The Subordinate Judge of Gaya decreed the suit finding, that the defendant purchased the property as agent of the plaintiffs and that the plaintiffs had been in possession even since and he held that the bazidawa-deed was a genuine transaction; and he also found that Section 66, Civil P.C., was not a bar to the suit, defendant having purchased the property not as a mere benamidar but as an agent.