RAM SARUP Vs. RAM CHANDAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Letters Patent appeal from a decision of a learned Single Judge of the High Court, Lahore. The facts shortly stated are as follows: One Prabhu Dial was the landlord of khasra No. 1525 situate at Gannaur, Tebsil Sonepat. Phullu was the occupancy tenant. On 10 February 1937 Phullu's creditors made an application to the Insolvency Court to have him adjudicated insolvent. After the application had been made, but probably before Phullu could be served, he sold his occupancy rights to his landlord on 25 February 1937 and Prabhu Dial sold the entire holding consisting of his rights of ownership as well as the occupancy rights which he had purchased from Phullu, to one Ram Chandar.

(2.) Later on after Phullu had been adjudicated insolvent, the Official Receiver sold Phullu's estate including his occupancy rights in khasra No. 1525, which had vested in him by virtue of the order of adjudication, to one Ram Sarup. The sale is dated 24 May 1937. Ram Chandar who had obtained the possession of khasra No. 1525 from Prabhu Dial, brought a suit for declaration that the said land belonged to him. The suit also related to certain other land, but with that we are not concerned. The suit was decreed by the trial Court and the decree was upheld by the lower appellate Court as well as by the High Court.

(3.) But on further appeal to a Letters Patent Bench of the Lahore High Court the decree of the trial Court was set aside and Ram Chandar's suit was dismissed on the ground that the sale of occupancy rights by Phullu in favour of Prabhu Dial having taken place during the pendency of the insolvency proceedings was ineffective, and accordingly neither Prabhu Dial nor Ram Chandar who purported to have purchased those rights from Prabhu Dial could acquire any title to those rights.