A.N. Verma, J. - (1.) The appellants are tenants of certain premises known as Kohinoor Building. Half share in this building belonging to the Firm Mansa Ram & Sons, was put to auction in the course of insolvency proceedings. At the first auction held in the year 1983 one Hukum Singh Panwar came forward with an offer of Rs. 70,000/- while the appellant's offer was only of Rs. 65,000/-. The offers were rejected as being too low as a result of which the property was directed to be re-auctioned on 27-6-1985. The auction, however, started on 25th of June, 1985 and continued upto 27th of that month. At this auction, the highest bid of Rs. 2,02,000/- was made by one Swarn Kumar. Before however, the same could be confirmed, H.S. Panwar filed objections and at the same time an offer of a higher amount of Rs. 2,05,000/-. Objections were also filed by the appellants stating that they did not have proper notice of the auction as a result of which they were deprived of the opportunity to participate therein. The learned District Judge has, by the impugned order directed that in view of the offer made by H.S. Pan war it is desirable that the property be put to re-auction subject to the condition that the minimum bid acceptable shall be of Rs. 2,02,000/- in view of offers already made at the previous occasion. He has further directed that if the offer is below Rs. 2,02,000/- the previous auction in favour of Swaran Kumar shall be confirmed.
(2.) Sri Tarun Agarwal appearing for the tenants submits that the condition imposed by the learned District Judge is unsustainable. He was not justified in placing any minimum limit for the auction. We are unable to agree. An offer of more than Rs. 2,02,000/- having already come before the court-that of H.S. Panwar the court below was perfectly justified in imposing that condition.
(3.) The learned counsel next contended that the limit of Rs. 2,02,000/- placed by the court below was unreasonable and it worked unfairly against the appellants who are sitting tenants of the accommodation. We cannot accept the contention. Simply because the appellate happened to be tenants, they could dictate the terms upon which the premises should be sold to them. The maximum right that they could claim was the leave to participate in the auction.;