BYAPPANAHALLI MUNIAMMA Vs. ARALE CHIKKAVEERANNA AND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Plaintiff, whose suit for a declaration, that a sale held by the Revenue authorities of the plaint schedule properties was a nullity, has been dismissed, has preferred this appeal. Her case is, that out of the four items set out in the plaint schedule, she bought item 4 and other properties from their previous owner one Subbarama Rao on 29-11-1935 subject to payment of a debt of Rs. 2,000/- due by the latter. In order to discharge that debt, she and her husband who is, however, said to have no interest in those properties mortgaged them without possession in favour of defendant 1 which is a Co-operative Society. Subsequently, some payments were made towards that debt and to recover the balance defendant 1 instituted proceedings before the Registrar of Cooperative Societies and obtained a decree in R. C. S. Dispute No. 7/40-41 for Rs. 2,844/-. The said decree was put in execution before the Revenue authorities and the plaint schedule items were brought to sale. At that sale item 4 was knocked down in the name of defendant 4 for Rs. 4,100/- and the other items were purchased by the Society itself. That sale is said to be a nullity for several reasons alleged in the plaint, the chief one among them and which is seriously pressed before this Court being that it was held by the Revenue authorities after an order of stay was passed by the Registrar of Co-operative Societies. The defendants denied that a stay order had at all been passed by the Registrar, and they pleaded that even if it were so the same would not be binding on the Revenue authorities; that the sale was duly held and confirmed and that the plaintiff could not question the same in a Civil Court in view of the terms of Section 221(c) of the Mysore Land Revenue Code. The defendants further pleaded that the suit was barred by time. The learned Subordinate Judge held that there were no irregularities whatsoever affecting the sale in question, and the plaintiff had not established any fraud in the conduct of the sale and, therefore, the suit was barred under Section 221(c) of the Mysore Land Revenue Code. He held that the suit was to be governed by Article 95 of the Limitation Act and as it had been brought more than 3 years after the sale, the suit was clearly barred by time. He, therefore, dismissed the suit.

(2.) In this Court, it is contended for the Appellant that the findings of the learned Subordinate Judge are not correct. It is urged that the Registrar of Co-operative Societies did as a matter of fact stay the sale and that the effect of such stay would be to render null and void any sale which may have been held by the Revenue authorities who were merely in the position of an executing Court so far as the decree passed by the Registrar was concerned. The argument is, that the Registrar who corresponded with the Court which passed the decree having stayed the sale, the Revenue authorities had no jurisdiction at all to hold1 . the sale which must, therefore, be held to be of no legal effect. (His Lordship considered the order of the Registrar and the evidence and concluded : )

(3.) We, therefore, agree with the learned Subordinate Judge that the sale was not actually at all stayed by the Registrar.