SADASHIV RAO Vs. UMAJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THAT on the findings arrived at by the learned District Judge-findings of fact which this Court should not be at liberty to disturb in civil revision-there were most serious defects and irregularities in connexion with the auction sale I am concerned with, cannot be questioned for one moment. Doubt existed as to whether the par-mission granted to the decree-holder to bid above Rs. 500 related to the five houses en bloc or to each separately. Apparently, also other intending purchasers ware in doubt as to whether the houses as they stood were being sold or only their materials. No proper description had been given of the property or its value : these and other irregularities undoubtedly occurred. What has been urged on behalf of the applicant is that, in the original application filed by the non-applicant Umaji, various grounds of irregularity, which the District Judge hag taken into consideration were not mentioned. It is clear, however, that the main allegation, viz., that other intending purchasers wished the houses to be put up separately, whereas as a result of collusion between the agent of the decree-holder and the malguzar, the houses were sold en bloc, does appear in the original application,

(2.) IN any event, I do not think that the present applicant can derive benefit from the decision in Harbans Lal v. Kundan Lal [1898] 21 All. 140. If in the course of an enquiry, such as. has been made by the lower Courts in this case, any further material irregularities come to light ejusdem generis with those alleged in the original application, it seems to ma that, provided the parties have due notice of the question involved, it would be the duty of the Court to take these additional material irregularities into consideration in coming to a decision as to whether an auction-sale like that we are concerned with was a legal one or not. Mukerji, J., in Ram Saran Das v. Girdhari Lal has painted out that when a specific material irregularity has been alleged and when additional particulars subsequently come to light, which amount to a further material irregularity or to an increase in the original one alleged, it is open to the Court to take these matters into consideration. All that really happened in the District Judge's Court was that further particulars as regards the highly unsatisfactory conditions under which this was conducted, came to the surface and were adjudicated upon by it. The sale, in short, was, from every point of view, a bad one and, although in the original application, the present non-applicant 1 did not enter all the particulars of the irregularities in question, the fact remains that he alleged material irregularity in support of the basic defect which relates to the doubt as to whether the houses were to be sold en bloc or separately. That was, in my opinion, a defect which went to the root of the sale and, even apart from the other considerations mentioned by the learned District Judge, would have amply justified the order passed by the latter,