NATESA PILLAI Vs. VENKATARAMA AIYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants are the judgment-debtors. They applied to the Court below under Order 21, Rule 90 to set aside a Court sale of their property held on 12 August, 1935, on the ground that there was irregularity in publishing and. conducting it, which resulted in the property being sold for a price much below its real value. The objections of the appellants were not stated with any degree of clarity in their application to the lower Court but in the course of the hearing it was urged that the sale was also vitiated by illegality. For the Court at the beginning of its judgment states that: It is urged inter alia that there has been material irregularity and illegality and fraud in the publication and conduct of the sale.

(2.) The Court held that the price fetched at the sale was not unduly low, that there was no material irregularity or illegality in publishing or conducting it and that the price fetched at the sale even if considered to be low was not the result of the alleged irregularities or illegalities. Hence this appeal. The contesting respondents here are the decree-holder, and the purchaser at Court auction who opposed the petition in the lower Court. The latter is the decree-holder's father.

(3.) The questions we have to decide are: 1. Was the price fetched at the sale unduly low so that it can be said to have resulted in substantial loss to the judgment-debtors? 2. If so was that loss due to material irregularity or fraud in publishing or conducting the sale? 3. Was the sale vitiated by illegality? [After considering the circumstances whether the price was so low as to result in substantial loss to the judgment-debtors and finding against that objection their Lordships proceeded as follows.]