Rajendra Prasad Sahu vs Gangan Koer

In this case the appellant is an auction-purchaser of the holding of the defendants in execution of a decree for rent. He has obtained a decree for three plots, which admittedly constitute a part of the holding. In regard to the first plot No. 23, he has been refused a decree for possession on the ground that the sale certificate shows that plot No. 24 was sold and not plot No. 23. The whole question turns on the doctrine of falsa demonstration and the sole point we have to consider is what was in the sale certificate the paramount description and what the subordinate description. In Karuppa Goundan Vs. Periaswami Gounder and Others, it was held that the plot numbers were subordinate descriptions. Another point of view from which the case may be approached is that set out in Barhamdeo Singh v. Ram Narain Singh 22 Ind. Cas. 280 : 19 C.L.J. 182. We must satisfy ourselves before we give the plaintiff a decree that the landlords intended to sell plot No. 23; that the defendant tenants were aware that plot No. 23 was up for sale, and that the bidders at the sale contemplated an acquisition of plot No. 23. It is suggested by Mr. Baikuntha Nath Mitter for the respondents that the burden of proof on the appellants is particularly heavy, for ordinarily where a sale proclamation is not sufficiently accurate to identify the property to be sold the sale mast be held to be void. With that proposition, to a certain extent, we may assent, but it is certain from the passage in 18 CWN 313 (Privy Council) that a property fully identified in the schedule may be in some respects misdescribed. The essential point is that the property should be by the paramount description fully identified. We may take it as common knowledge among the cultivating classes that when a raiyat fails to pay his rent, the inevitable consequence is the sale of the holding. We may take it as recognised that upon a decree for rent the holding of the defaulting raiyat will be brought to sale. We may take it that the legal advisers of the Maharani could not have been so stupendously foolish as to put up to sale, in execution of this rent-decree, three plots of the defaulting tenants'' holding and one plot, the property of an entire stranger. We have no doubt whatever that the decree-holder, judgment debtor, and the intending bidders were all fully aware that what was to be sold was the holding of the defaulting tenants. We do not suppose that anybody stopped to consider whether the numbers in the khasra were correct. If they had stopped to consider this, they would have seen at once that there was no such field as khasra No. 24 having an area of 10 bighas, for khasra No. 24 has an area of 6 bighas and khasra No. 23 an area of 10 bighas. We hold that the paramount description in this case was the description given in the body of the application for attachment which runs:--

The amount may be realised by the attachment and sale of the land, for which rent is claimed and which forms the kast of the judgment-debtors in this decree.

The appeal must, therefore, be decreed and the order of the learned Subordinate Judge discharged. The plaintiff''s suit is decreed in fall for the whole area claimed in the suit. It is to be noted that a settlement has been arrived at out of Court with the representatives-in-interest of the original defendants Nos. 2, 6 and 10 and the defendant No. 3 himself. These defendants have accepted the claim of the plaintiffs as to plot No. 23, and as against these parties the plaintiffs appellants will bear their own costs and have given up their claims for mesne profits.

The decree, therefore, will be, as against the remaining defendants, for recovery of possession of so much of plot No. 23 as may remain in the hands of the contesting defendants and mesne profits against them for so much of the property as may have been retained in their possession since the date of the execution sale with proportionate costs to this extent.