K CHUNILAL SOWCAR Vs. KNSRINIVASA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Civil Revision Petition purports to be filed under Section 75 of the Provincial Insolvency Act against an order of the District Court on appeal from the order of the Subordinate Judge of Chingleput made in insolvency petition No. 7 of 1943.

(2.) The petitioning creditor is the petitioner here. He filed an insolvency petition under secdon 9 on 10 December, 1943. In accordance with the High Court Rule made under Section 79 of the Act with regard to notices (Rule 21), notices of the date fixed for the hearing of the petition under Section 19(1) of the Act were sent to all creditors and to the debtor within the time laid down by Rule 21(3). The date fixed for the hearing of the petition was 9 February, 1944. For some reason or another the actual hearing was apparently postponed until the 24th March, 1944, when an order of adjudication was passed. In the meantime, on 29 February, 1944, an amendment to Rule 21, Sub-rule 3 had been made making Rule 21(3) read to the effect that notices of the date fixed for the hearing of an insolvency petition must be served not only on the creditors and the debtor but also on any transferee, the transfer in whose favour is alleged to be an act of insolvency within the meaning of clauses (a), (b) or (c) of Section 6 of the Act.

(3.) The order of adjudication was therefore made in the absence of the alienee and without any notice of the date of hearing having been given to him. The insolvent had appealed against the adjudication order to the District Court. In that Court, the alienee, the present respondent, filed a petition to be added as a party to the appeal on the srength of the above amendment to the rules. The learned District Judge held that he was entitled not only to notice but also to come on record and to contest the petition before the lower Court. He felt that the proper course was to set aside the order of the insolvency Court and to remand the petition for fresh disposal on hearing whatever contentions the newly added alienee desired to put forward. He made an order accordingly.