VENKATAKAMAIYA, CJ. - (1.)The Appellant is the decree-holder whose main grievance is that the lower Court has arbitrarily rejected his application for permission to bid and purchase the properties of the judgment-debtor for a sum of Rs. 16,000, The decree amount for which he is allowed to buy the same is alleged to be very high. The decree was passed by consent on 17-12-1949 and this appears to have been made final in 1952. No payment is made or attempted to be made by the judgment-debtor and sale of the properties has proved infructuous more than once. The last order in the execution case passed on 27-6-1955 was
"Decree holder by Sri K. P. Immovable properties not sold for want of bidders. Decree-holder was permitted to bid. Sale coming on 5th time. Decree holder absent (which is contrary to the note made at first). This petition is closed".

(2.)It is contended for the decree-holder that in the absence of any bid and any one coming forward to buy the properties on five occasions, the offer made by decree-holder should be treated as the best and tbat this was bona fide. When attachment of the properties before judgment was applied for by the plaintiff, the estimated value of the properties was mentioned as Rs.12,000 and the value is repeated in the schedule to the decree passed by consent. The amount claimed in the execution petition is Rs.56,280 and odd and there is no particular reason apparently for compelling the decree-holder to purchase the properties for treble the amount at which he valued them as the judgment-debtor wants him to do, when none else is prepared to offer any price. The judgment-debtor beyond asserting that the properties are very valuable has not placed any material to support it or made any effort to raise money or secure buyers on any terms.
(3.)In the sale proclamation the estimated value is stated to bo less than the decree amount and this was not objected to. It looks as if the persons disposed to buy the properties are kept out to avert the possibility of a sale for less than the decree amount with a view to force the properties on the decree-holder in full discharge of the decree. The lower Court has overlooked this and the futility of holding further sales without allowing the decree-holder to offer the bid proposed by Mm. Mr. Veera Setty raised a preliminary objection to the appeal as not being competent on the ground that the order fixing terms on which the decree-holder may purchase the properties is not appealable. He cited Ulaganatha Mudaliar v. M.Alagappa Mudaliar, A.I.R. 1929 Mad. 903 in which the court relying on the observations of the Privy Council in Ko Tha Hnyin v. Ma Hnin, I.L.R. 38 Cal. 717 observed : "An order giving or refuging leave to bid is only a ministerial order and not appealable."
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