SATISH CHANDRA, J. - (1.) ON March 18, 1974, the Collector, Nainital, and the District Excise Officer, Nainital held an auction inter alia, for the settlement of country liquor shops of Bazpur, Jaspur and Gadarpur in the district of Nainital, for the financial year 1974-75. The petitioner's bid of Rs. 8,00,000/- for these three shops was the highest. That bid was noted down in the bid sheet which was signed by the petitioner. It is not disputed that the petitioner, did not sign nor was he required to sign the relevant entry in the settlement record in Form G-14. The petitioner did not deposit the l|6th amount of the bid. The shops of these three places were settled temporarily with some other person and ultimately on April 22, 1974, they were settled permanently for the year in question for a sum of Rs. 5,50,000/-. There was a deficiency of Rs, 2,19,016-30, being the difference between the petitioner's highest bid of Rs. 8,00,000/ - and the amount for which the shop was settled with other person temporarily. The authorities demanded the payment of this deficiency from the petitioner. The petitioner challenges the vali­dity of the demand and also the threat to realise this deficiency as an arrear of land revenue.
(2.) LEARNED counsel submitted before us that in view of the statu­tory rules the petitioner never became the auction-purchaser. He; was hence neither liable to deposit the security nor pay the defici­ency for the short fall. Rule 373 of the Excise Manual lays down the conditions which are to apply to all sales by auction, Rules 374 lays down the general rules, which are to be followed, for conduct­ing excise sales. Sub-rule (5) of Rule 374 provides: - "A settlement record (in Form G-14) for all licences to be sold under each branch of excise shall be prepared before the date fixed for the sale." Sub-rule (6) provides: - " (i) The officer conducting the sales shall record the name of each person making a bid and the amount of bid. (ii) Signatures of the highest bidder and the next two lower bidders, shall also be taken on the bid sheet, whether such per­son have been accepted as auction-purchasers or not, (iii) At the time of the sale the person accepted as the auction-purchaser shall be required to sign his name or affix his mark against the relevant entry of the licence in the Record G-14, it being explained at the time that the deposit paid in advance will be returned in the event of the licence being subsequently refused. The final bid accepted shall invariably be recorded with his own hand by the officer conducting the sales." The petitioner alleges that no record in Form G-14 had been prepar­ed at all. Form G-14 provides for nine columns in which the Tahsil, Pargana, name of the shop, name of the licence-vendor, account and the fee offered are to be entered in the first six columns. Column No. 7 entitled the signature of the auction-purchaser. It is obvious that this form is to be partly prepared before the date fixed for the sale, viz., by entering the name of the Tahsil, pargana and the shop but partly it has to be prepared at the time of the sale by filling in the name of the licence vendor in column 5 and the amount of fee offered in column 6. Then when at the time of the sale the person, who offers the highest bid or the next highest bid, is accepted as the auction-purchaser, he is to be required to sign his name against the relevant entry of this form, i,e. in column No. 7. This statutory procedure has been prescribed in order to determine that not only the officer conducting the sale has accepted an individual person as the auction-purchaser but that that bidder has also accepted that position. Since the prescribed procedure lays down the mode of the acceptance of the auction-purchaser to be by written signature in the settlement record in Form G-14, no other procedure can validly be adopted by an individual conducting the excise sales. In the present cask the allegations that the Form G-14, was not prepared at all has not been denied nor the allegation that he was never re­quired to sign his name against the relevant entry in Form G-14, has been denied. It is thus evident that the conditions precedent for recognising a person as an auction-purchaser were not fulfilled.
(3.) FOR the respondents, it has been urged that the question of pre­paring the record in Form G-14 and obtaining the signature of the auction-purchaser would arise only after he has made the deposit of l|6th of the bid as security. We are unable to agree. In Form G-14, there is no column for either the date of the deposit of l|6th of the bid or indicating that this amount has to be deposited prior to the acceptance of the person as the auction-purchaser. A reading of sub-rule 6(ii) shows that the occasion to deposit the l|6th of the bid would arise only after the event of acceptance of the bidder as an auction-purchasier has taken place. Then, on the same day, he is re­quired to deposit l|6th of the annual fee under sub-rule (6) of Rule 373.;