- (1.) THE facts in this case, which has been referred by my Lord the Chief Justice to a larger Bench are that a firm Messrs Narain Dass-Faquir Chand and Faquir Chand, one of the proprietors, were adjudicated as insolvents by the Court at Amristar and the Official Receiver, not believing that the firm's account-books had been destroyed in their disturbances as was alleged, and believing that the said account-books were being deliberately withheld by the insolvents made a recommendation to the learned Insolvency Judge in which a creditor firm also joined that the insolvents should be prosecuted under section 69 of the Provincial Insolvency Act, and after holding an inquiry into the matter under section 70 the learned Insolvency Judge decided that although the plea of the Official Receiver was probably correct, there was not sufficient material for prosecuting the insolvents and rejected the Official Receiver's recommendation. An appeal filed under section 75 of the Act by the Official Receiver and the creditor firm was dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge who, while he did not agree with the learned Insolvency Judge on the merits, held that the Official Receiver had no right of appeal under section 75. The present revision petition has been filed jointly by the Official Receiver and the creditor firm.
(2.) THE question of the interpretation of S. 75 on this matter is not free from difficulty, since the view expressed by Tek Chand J. in Ram Chadn v. Mohra Singh Attar Chand, AIR 1929 Lah 622 that the debtor, any creditor and the receiver have an automatic right of apepal under section 75 was dissented from the Dalip Singh and Sale JJ. In Achhru Ram v. Padam Parshad, AIR 1941 Lah 243. The first part of section 75 (1) reads" the debtor, any creditor, the receiver or any other person aggrieved by a decision come to or an order made in the exercise of insolvency jurisdiction by a Court subordinate to a District Court, and the order may appeal to the District Court upon such appeal shall be final". In the case, decided by Tek Chand J. , the appeal to which objection was taken was filed by an insolvent against an order overruling his objections against the sale of certain property belonging to him by the Official Receiver in favour of certain auction-purchasers, and the view was taken that whereas under the Act of 1907 the right of appeal was confined to persons aggrieved, it was now given in the Act of 1920 "the debtor, any creditor, the receiver or any other person aggrieved by a decision".
(3.) IN the later Lahore case this view was questioned and it was held that the wording of section 75 as it stood in the Act of 1920 meant that in order to have a right to file an appeal the debtor, a creditor or the receiver must be aggrieved. That case, like the present, was also a case where the Insolvency Court had rejected an application for the prosecution of the insolvent filed by the Official Receiver whose appeal was accepted by the District Judge and the prosecution of the insolvent was ordered. The insolvent moved the High Court in revision against the order of the District Judge, and when the case was referred to a Division Judge, and was held that since neither any creditor nor the receiver had any right to demand the prosecution of the insolvent, they could not be said to be aggrieved by an order refusing to prosecute the insolvent under section 69 and consequently they had no right of appeal against that order under section 75.;