BALAJI SAO Vs. ANAND PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiffs, Balajisao Umrisao and Goresao, sued the liquidator, Hatta Kasari Society, Balaghat, and Anand Prasad, the present respondent, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge. 2nd Class, Balaghat, under the following circumstances. The plaintiffs claimed a declaration that the house and kothas specified in the plaint were exempt from attachment and sale and that the present respondent had not acquired any interest in them by virtue of his action-purchase. The plaintiffs were members of the Hatta Kasari Society and were indebted as such to it to the extent of some Rs. 10,000. The society went into liquidation and the amount was ordered by the Registrar, Co-operative Societies, to be realized as arrears of land revenue. The first defendant, as a liquidator of the Society, accordingly attached the property through the revenue Court and had it sold by auction; it was purchased by the present respondent for Rs. 25. The plaintiff's case was that the subjects in question were exempt from attachment as being used for agricultural purposes under Section 60 (c) of the Civil P.C.

(2.) DEFENDANT 1 denied that the property in question was used for agricultural purposes. He further pleaded that even if it was so used, it was not exempt from attachment and sale as this was effected under Section 128 of the Land Revenue Act. A further plea was offered that the Hatta Kasari Society had been brought under dissolution and liquidation under Sections 39 and 42 of the Co-operative Societies Act and that, this being a matter connected with such dissolution and liquidation, no separate civil suit of the present kind was tenable. The present appellant as Defendant 2 adopted the same position.

(3.) ON these findings, the Subordinate Judge granted a decree declaring that the present appellants' house and kothas were exempt from attachment and sale and that the present respondent had not acquired any interest therein by reason of his auction-purchase.