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Judgment
Burn, J.—We consider that the learned District Judge was right in holding that the sale of lot 2 before lot 1 was in the circumstances of this
case, an irregularity, and since that irregularity precluded the respondent in A.A.O. No. 429 of 1937 from bidding for the property, it was a
material irregularity. We have been referred to two cases in which learned Judges of the Allahabad High Court have held that the sale of items in a
different order from that shown in the proclamation is not an irregularity. Inamullah Khan Vs. Lala Shambhu Dayal and Chhuttan Lal v. Muhammad
Ikram Khan I.L.R.(1933) 55 All. 519. We observe however that in both those cases the selling officer had followed his usual practice of selling
non-ancestral items first and ancestral items later. So far as we are aware, the practice in this Presidency is to sell the lots in the order in which they
appear in the proclamation, and a departure from that order may (we do not say that in all cases it must) amount to a material irregularity.
That there has been substantial injury occasioned by the irregularity is clear since property worth not less than Rs. 5,000 has been sold for Rs.
3,000.
These appeals are accordingly dismissed. The appellant will pay the respondents'' costs in A.A.O. No. 429 of 1937. We make no order as to
costs in the other appeals.
In the resale we suggest to the lower Court that proper prices are more likely to be realised by sale in smaller parcels.