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Judgment
Oldfield, J.—This is an appeal by the petitioners, Judgment-debtors, against an order dismissing their petition under Order 21, Rule 90
C.P.C. The majority of the grounds, on which the publication and conduct of the sale were impugned, were rightly held unsustainable by the lower
Court, because they either had been or might have been taken in the proceedings for framing proclamation, of which the petitioners had notice,
and, so far as they were taken, were either not established or were not material. We therefore can confine ourselves to two points, (1) the lower
Court''s failure to enquire into the allegation that the sale was not proclaimed in the village (2) its conclusion, adopted from a previous order, that
no publication at the Collector''s office was required, because the property was not ryotwari land.
That previous order is in fact material on both points, because as regards publication in the village also the conclusion in it was adopted, no
further enquiry being held. It was passed on a previous petition by the present petitioners, E.A. No. 71. dated 2nd April 1921, in which publication
in two newspapers was asked for and also a postponement of the sale until 9th July 1921, apparently after the vacation. The sale had been fixed
for 4th April 1921, and the petitioners'' object to gain time, was sufficiently clear. In spite however of the decree-holders'' opposition, referred to in
the diary in the record, to a postponement and his presumable readiness to support the sale in case of proceedings under Order 21, Rule 90, the
lower Court took the exceptional course of allowing the sale to continue, but at the same time holding an enquiry into the validity of the
proclamation, concluding the sale only when that enquiry had ended in the decree-holder''s favour. That enquiry included the taking of evidence as
to the publication in the village, which had been denied in the affidavit accompanying the petition and the decision that the proclamation was duly
published has been adopted in the order before us.
One ground, on which this adoption has been supported, is that the lower Court merely utilized the evidence already taken, as though the
previous proceeding during the sale had not been completed, and based its present finding on it. But that does not correspond with the facts, that
the previous proceeding was completed by the refusal to adjourn the sale and that the lower Court does not now profess to have applied its mind
to the evidence or to have done more than adopt the previous decision.
It is then necessary to consider whether, as is further argued, that previous decision concludes the parties as res judicata. Certainly the evidence
for and against publication Mas taken fully and the order of 7-5-1921, refusing adjournment or postponement, discussed it fully, and certainly the
judgment debtor had invited the Court to decide and the decree holders acquiesced in its deciding the question, the latter producing their evidence.
It may moreover be said that, if there had been no proper publication, the sale would clearly have been ineffective, since on application it would
have had to be set aside. But those considerations do not entail that the Court had jurisdiction to reach or the judgment-debtors the right to ask it
to reach a conclusion on the point at that stage or that in doing so it acted otherwise than officiously. The Code does not provide for any enquiry
into the validity of the publication of proclamation, until after the sale has been held. If the Court holds one, it must be regarded as doing so for its
own satisfaction. Whether in case it is not satisfied that there has been proper publication, it would be entitled to re fuse to proceed and to call on
the decree holder to pay for a fresh publication, in spite of his readiness to take the risk of failure in proceedings under Order 21, Rule 90, need
not in the present case be considered, What is material is that, when the enquiry is not prescribed by law, but is, as here, undertaken only to decide
on the necessity for a postponement there can be no security for the Court''s application of the standard of proof appropriate to a judicial
proceeding or shortly for its having acted judicially and for its decision being a judgment. There is naturally no authority applicable to an exceptional
incident of this description. But it is material that in Sivagami Achi v. Subramania Aiyar ILR (1904) M. 259 the policy of this part of the law was
regarded as being to avoid ""the difficulties and delays, which even now occur in obtaining the execution of decrees"" and to postpone consideration
of objections to the publication and conduct of sales, until after they have been held, when the essential issue whether loss has been caused can
also be tried. In the circumstances it is not possible to hold that the proper publication of the sale proclamation was res judicata or that the lower
Court was justified in refusing to take evidence and adjudicate on it.
The lower Court further did not take evidence as to the publication at the Collector''s Office, because it adopted the previous conclusion that
such publication was requisite under Order 21, Rule 67 read with Rule 54(2) only in the case of ryotwari land and not in the case of enfranchised
shrotriem village, such as are in question according to petitioners'' affidavit dated 2-4-1921 and the sale proclamation and the admission made
before us. For this construction of Rule 54(2) we have been shown no authority and in ordinary parlance the quit-rent payable to Government
would be as clearly revenue as any other money payable to it for use in the ordinary course of administration. Revenue however has not been, so
far as we have been shown defined, except in Section 1, Madras Act VI of 1867. True, according to that provision, revenue means ""assessment,
quit-rent, ground-rent or other charge upon the land payable to Government,"" and in the Revenue Recovery Act (II of 1864) the machinery for the
collection of revenue is by Sections 1 and 3 explicitly applied to shrotriemdars. The argument on the other side is however that a distinction is
recognised in other statutes, for instance by the reference to ""Lakhiraj lands and all other lands paying favourable quit-rents"" in Section 4, Reg.
XXV of 1802 and in the reference to ""land charged with any fixed payment in lieu of revenue"" in Section 7(5)(a) of the Court Fees Act (VII of
1870) between revenue and such payments as a shrotriemdar has to make and that this distinction should be applied before the shrotriem villages
in the proclamation before us are treated as land paying revenue to Government. But as regards the Regulation it is material that ""lands paying
favourable quit rents"" are one of a number of ""articles of revenue"" enumerated in the section and that it is not clear, the result for the purpose of
Court Fee being the same, whether shrotriem lands would not fall under the description in Section 7(5)(e) of the Court Fees Act, as ""land partially
exempt from the payment of revenue."" In any case the foregoing reference to the two Madras Acts shows that no decisive result can be reached
by recourse to other statutes. The real answer to the decree-holder moreover is that recourse to other statutes is not legitimate when, like those
here relied on, they are not in pari materia with the statute under interpretation and that it is unnecessary, when, as in this case, the prima facie
interpretation of the word used is consistent with the circumstances and the object of the provision. For it is easy to understand the division of land
in private ownership under two heads, that for which directly or indirectly payments are made to Government and that for which there are none,
land available for cultivation falling under the first and land not so available, for instance house sites, backyards and other urban or village sites,
under the other; and it is easy to understand the necessity for advertisement of the sale of the former at the public office concerned with two
important incidents of ownership, the liability and the right to recognition of liability for public dues. The lower Court''s conclusion that publication
at the Collector''s office was unnecessary cannot in these circumstances be sustained.
The result is that the appeal must be allowed, the lower Court''s decision being set aside and the petition remanded for rehearing after enquiry on
the issues (1) whether the proclamation was published in the village (2) whether it was affixed in the collector''s office (3) whether, if the finding on
either or both of these points is in the negative, the applicant in consequence sustained substantial lo Sections Costs to date here and in the lower
Court will be costs in the cause and be provided for in the order to be passed.
Devadoss, J.
This appeal is against the order of the District Judge of Nellore declining to set aside an aution sale held on 7-5-1921. The petitioners are the
2nd and 3rd defendants, and respondents 1 to 4 are the plaintiffs, in O.S. No. 58 of 1917. The 6th respondent is the auction purchaser. The
plaintiffs obtained a mortgage decree against the first defendant (the husband of the second defendant) and the third defendant, her son. The
properties were brought to sale and were purchased for a sum, which the petitioners allege to be considerably below the value of the properties.
They applied to have the sale set aside on the ground of irregularity and fraud on the part of the plaintiffs and the auction purchaser. The learned
District Judge declined to take evidence as regards the irregularities complained of as, in his opinion, they had already been found against the
petitioners in J. previous enquiry, and held that there were no grounds for setting aside the sale.
In this appeal several contentions are put forward. The first is that the amount of the income derived from the properties was not mentioned in
the sale proclamation and that no particualrs were given for ascertaining the value of the properties. The petitioners were served with notices to be
present at the time when the sale proclamation was settled and they did not choose to be present. They cannot, therefore, reasonably complain that
a certain piece of information, which, according to them, would have given data to the purchaser as regards the value, have been omitted. There is
nothing therefore in this contention.
It is next urged that the properties were grossly undervalued in the sale proclamation. It is in evidence that the two properties were valued at Rs.
7,000 each and there is no reliable evidence to show that the value of the properties was anything more than that mentioned in the sale
proclamation. As a matter of fact, we find that the upset price had to be reduced as there were no bidders to bid up to the amount mentioned in
the sale proclamation. This objection also fails.
The contention that there was a combination among the bidders and that they conspired not to raise the bid is not seriously pressed. It is not
illegal for a number of intending bidders to arrange among themselves not to bid above a certain figure. The other allegations in the petition are not
seriously pressed.
The contention that needs consideration is, was the learned Judge justified in refusing to take evidence as regards the allegations made in the
petition? In his judgment, in para. 5 he says para. 4 refers to four circumstances in connection with the publication of the proclamation. ""1, 2 and 3
were dealt with in the order of the Court on the previous petition and were found against the petitioners""; and in para. 8, he observes, ""For the
foregoing reasons I am of opinion that it is unnecessary to take evidence for disposing of the petition."" The inquiry referred to was held by the
District judge on a petition presented by the present petitioners on 2-4-1921 in which they prayed for orders (1) for publishing the proclamation in
this case duly in ""the Andra Patrika"" and ''the Hindu'' papers (2) for stopping the sale in this case till 9-7-1921 and (3) with such other reliefs as the
Court may deem fit according to circumstances."" The sale advertised to be held on 4-4-1921. The petition was opposed by the plaintiffs and the
learned Judge passed the following order on 16-4-1921 : ""The sale will continue from day to day till 30th April. Petitioner to pay batta. His
witnesses must be ready that day. Adjournment to 30th April for evidence."" The petitioners stated in paragraph 9 of the affidavit filed in support of
the petition that ""the proclamation was not published by tom-tom beat of the drum even in the two villages. Therefore the proclamation is not
proper and maintainable."" Evidence was taken on both sides and the Judge passed an order on the 7th May 1921 that. ""There are no grounds
therefore to suppose that there was no proper proclamation"". With regard to the allegation that notice was not affixed in the Collector''s office, he
remarked, ""the properties being shrotriem lands, it was not necessary to affix a copy of the notice of the sale in the Collector''s, office,"" and he
concluded his order by saying, ""I see no grounds to hold that there has been no proper publication of the sale. I therefore dismiss the petition with
costs.
It is contended on behalf of the respondent that that order is binding on the parties and that it was not therefore necessary for the Judge to
enquire again into that matter after the sale has been held. This application is made under Order 21, Rule 90. That rule can only apply to cases
where there has been a sale and where the petitioners seek to set aside the sale. No doubt the executing Court has power to satisfy itself whether a
proclamation of sale was duly published or not, when an allegation is made by a party that is was not duly published. It is urged that, inasmuch as
the petitioners invited the learned Judge to hold an enquiry they are bound by the result of that enquiry, whether the learned judge has power or not
to hold such an enquiry. The question is whether the parties are bound by the result of an enquiry which could not be held before the sale. The
mere fact that the petitioners adduced evidence or consented to the enquiry and even asked the Judge to hold an enquiry would not be a sufficient
compliance with the provisions of Rule 90 of Order 21, whereby a party has got a right to go before the executing Court and ask that Court to
hold an enquiry and set aside a sale on the ground of material irregularity or fraud in publishing or conducting it. No authority is shown for the
contention that this finding of the learned Judge is either res judicata between the parties or that that decision is a sufficient anwser to an application
under Rule 90. In this case the petition was mainly intended to get a sale adjourned and to have the proclamation of sale published in some of the
well-known papers so that well-to-do people or people who wanted to invest on land might bid at the sale. There is no prayer in the petition of 2-
4-1921 for an enquiry as regards the irregularity or the absence of publication by beat of tom tom in the village. It cannot be contended that, by
making an application for adjournment of a sale and by consenting to have evidence adduced as regards one of the allegations in the petition the
petitioners either abandoned their right to have the sale set aside under Rule 90 of Order 21, C.P.C. or under any other provision of law open to
them. The object with which the learned Judge held the enquiry on the petition of April, 1921 was only for the purpose of satisfying himself as
regards the truth or otherwise of the allegations made in that petition in order to consider whether the sale should be adjourned or not. In these
circumstances the lower Court erred in not taking evidence and disposing of this petition on the merits. In this connection it is necessary to notice
the contention that it is not necessary to affix the notice of sale in the Collector''s Office. It is difficult to say what materials the learned Judge had
for saying in his order of the 7th May, 1921, that the properties being shrotriem lands, it was not necessary to affix a copy of the notice of sale in
the Collector''s office. Under Order 21, Rule 54 ""a copy of the order shall be affixed on a conspicuous part of the property and then upon a
conspicuous part of the Court-house and also, where the property is a land paying revenue to Government in the office of the Collector of the
District in which the land is situate."" It is argued for the respondent that, inasmuch as the property brought to sale are shrotriem villages, it was not
necessary to affix the notice in the office of the Collector of the district, for shrotriem villages pay only quit-rent or jodi and what is paid is not
revenue and therefore Order 21, Rule 54, Clause (2) does not apply to them. Mr. Krishnaswami Aiyar, in support of his argument, refers to the
Court-fees Act, Section 7, Clause V(c) and contends that ''revenue'' there means revenue which is collected from ryotwari lands or from
permanently settled estates and where a certain amount is paid as quit-rent it is not revenue but it is in lieu of it, and therefore Rule 54 does not
apply to a case like this. It has to be remembered that the CPC is an enactment of the Imperial Legislature and we have to see whether the
legislature intended to use the expression, ''land paying revenue to Government,'' in the sense in which it is ordinarily understood or in any particular
sense.
From the earliest days of the East India Company the Revenue administration of the territory ceded to it formed an important portion of its
activities. The word ""revenue"" meant the share of the produce of the land which the Government, either the East India Company or its
predecessor, took from the ryot or the cultivator. There is no definition of the word ''revenue'' in the CPC or in the General Clauses Act, but in the
Madras Revenue Recovery Act of 1864 ''public revenue'' is said to include for the purpose of the Act cesses or other dues payable to
Government on account of water supplied for irrigation. It is admitted that shrotriem villages are liable to pay road cess. The short answer to the
respondent''s contention is that shrotriem villages pay road-cess and therefore they are lands paying revenue to Government, but the discussion
need not end here as the word ""revenue"" in the Madras Regulations as well as in Bengal and Bombay Regulations always meant the assessment
which the Government levied from the occupier for the occupation of the land. In the Madras Regulation 24 of 1802 known as the Permanent
Settlement Regulation, the words ""land revenue"" are used to denote the amount payable by the zamindars to the Government. It is therefore clear
that what a zamindar pays to Government is revenue. Whether land held on inam or on other favourable tenures could be said to be land paying
revenue to Government is a question which is not free from difficulty. In Bengal Law Reports, supplementary Volume, page 75, at page 87 there is
a case, Piziruddin v. Madhusudan Pal Chowdhry B L.R. l. 75, in which the question was whether a zamindar could grant a piece of land rent free
out of his zamindari. In the course of the judgment, Mr. Justice Shamboonath Pandit, one of the Judges who formed the Full Bench observes : ""In
India that portion of the produce of lands which goes to the ruling power as its share is called revenue; and the produce is money or kind received
from the cultivators by persons entitled to collect as well as the collection made in kind or money by other intermediate holder of different grade,
from those who are above those persons that collect from tenants of the lowest grade up to those who pay the revenue directly to Government is
also called rent."" In another case Mahomed Akil v. Asadunnissa, Bubee Muthy Lall Sen Gywal v. Deshkey Roy Beng L.R. 794, reported in the
same volume at page 794, Sir Barnes Peacock, C.J. observes at page 831, ""If the construction which I put upon the words of Section 10 is
correct, the word ''revenue'' will be read in its ordinary and natural sense. The provisions of the section are natural and consistent with justice, and
force and effect will be given to every word of the section."" The word ''revenue'' therefore means ordinarily the share which the Government gets
from the occupier as its claim upon what the Indian Raja and Governments got from the tillers of the soil. Considerable light is thrown upon this in
the Fifth Report on the East India affairs at page 34 of the Second Volume of this Report, there is this passage : ""To form a correct judgment of the
weight of the assessment upon the country generally, we ought to possess the following data."" First a knowledge of the rents actually paid by the
ryots compared with the produce of their labour. Secondly accurate accounts of what the zamindars and farmers collect and their payments to
Government. Thirdly detailed accounts of the alienated lands showing the quantity of them, the person to whom they were granted, the dates of the
grants and those by whom they are now held.
As I have said above, from the earliest days of the East India Company a good portion of its activities was directed towards the revenue
settlement of the territory ceded to it by the Native Princes or acquired by it under treaties or otherwise, and, in all the correspondence and the
earliest documents and papers, the word ""revenue"" is used to denote what the East India Company or the Government expected to get from the
lands as its share of the produce. In third volume of the Fifth Report at page 252 there is an extract from the proceedings of the Board of Revenue
at Fort. St. George of the 8th September, 1806. It is addressed to the Subordinate Collector of Tanjore. It begins thus : ""You will be pleased to
commence in the settlement of the revenues on your respective divisions without delay and on the following grounds : Para. 1. Nanja. You first
take the produce of each village in Faslis 12x0, 1211 and 1212 and ascertain therefrom the average produce per veli. This average you will
consider as the medium standard produce of the village"" and various directions are given as to how the Government''s share was to be ascertained.
It is contended that certain cesses are not revenue, no doubt they are not land revenue but anything which is made payable by reason of
possession of land or that which is levied upon land may be taken to be revenue. In other words whatever is payable to Government either by way
of cess or by way of dues by a holder of land as such would be revenue.
The policy of Order 21, Rule 54 is patent. It is for the purpose of informing the Collector of the district as to the change of ownership of land
so that he may proceed, in case of default of payment of revenue, against the person who is the owner of the land. Though land is primarily
responsible for the payment of the revenue yet it is necessary for the revenue department to know who is the owner so that it may have its
remedies against him. That being so it is not possible to accept the contention that a shrotriem village is not land paying revenue to Government
simply because it does not pay the revenue which an ordinary ryotwari holding pays or which a Zamindar pays. The learned Judge has erred in
thinking that the shrotriem in question is not land paying revenue to Government and that therefore notice of sale need not be affixed to the
Collector''s office.
The appeal is allowed and the learned Judge is asked to take evidence and dispose of the petition as directed by my learned brother.