Rajasthan High Court - Jodhpur

Lrs Of Mangi Lal And Ors vs Shanti Lal on 4 November, 2025

Author: Farjand Ali

Bench: Farjand Ali

[2025:RJ-JD:46989]

      HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT
                       JODHPUR
               S.B. Civil Revision Petition No. 172/2010


LR's of Late Shri Mangi Lal :-


1. Smt. Ratan Devi W/o Late Shri Mangi Lal b/c Jain, R/o Village

Tana, Tehsil Kapasan, Rajasthan.


2. Kalu Lal Jain S/o Shri Mangi Lal Jain, Aged about 46 years, b/c

Jain, R/o Village Tana, Tehsil Kapasan, Rajasthan.


3. Smt. Manju D/o Late Shri Mangi Lal W/o Shri Rajkumar Ji, b/c

Jain, R/o b/c Jain, R/o Village Tana, Tehsil Kapasan, Rajasthan at

Piche, Chittorgarh, present Taksal ke Rajasthan.


4. Smt. Shakuntala D/o Late Shri Mangi Lal W/o Shri Akhil

Sogani, b/c Jain, R/o b/c Jain, R/o Village Tana, Tehsil Kapasan,

Rajasthan at present Hari Shankar Ji Tiwari, Manikya Nagar,

Bhilwara, Rajasthan.



                                                                   ----Petitioner



                                    Versus



Shanti Lal S/o Shri Kesari Mal Ji, b/c Jain, R/o Village Tana,

Tehsil Chittorgarh, Rajasthan. Kapasan, District.




                                                                 ----Respondent




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For Petitioner(s)           :     Mr. SC Maloo
For Respondent(s)           :     Mr. Vinay Jain



                HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE FARJAND ALI

                                       Order

Reportable-
Order Pronounced On                       :                          04/11/2025
Order Reserved On                         :                         23/09/2025
BY THE COURT:-

1. By way of filing this civil revision petition under Section 115

of the Code of Civil Procedure, the petitioner has assailed the

order dated 15.07.2010 passed by the learned Additional

District Judge No. 2, Chittorgarh (Rajasthan) in Original Civil

Suit No. 14/2008, whereby the learned Court below

dismissed the petitioner's application filed under Section 47

read with Section 151 of the CPC, seeking determination of

questions arising in the course of execution of the decree.

2. The brief facts giving rise to the present Revision Petition are

that the respondent had filed Civil Suit No. 6/1993 against

the father of the petitioners, late Shri Mangi Lal Jain, which

was decreed in favour of the respondent. In execution of the

said decree dated 03.05.1993, the agricultural land

measuring 38 Bigha 1 Biswa situated at Nawalpura, Tehsil

Kapasan, belonging to the petitioners, was auctioned and

purchased by the respondent. Thereafter, the petitioners

filed an application dated 16.02.2008 under Sections 47 and

151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, raising objections to the

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anomalies alleged to have occurred during the auction

proceedings, and sought rejection of the respondent's

application filed under Order 21 Rule 95 CPC for delivery of

possession of the auctioned land. It was contended that

although the learned executing court had confirmed the

auction on 07.04.2005, the same was withdrawn on

02.08.2005, and again re-confirmed on 02.02.2006. The

respondent subsequently moved an application under Order

21 Rule 95 CPC on 17.12.2007 for delivery of possession,

along with the sale certificate issued under Order 21 Rule 94

CPC, pursuant to which a warrant of possession was issued

and the matter remained pending. The petitioners further

contended that the said application under Order 21 Rule 95

CPC was barred by limitation, as it had not been filed within

the prescribed period, and therefore, the court lacked

jurisdiction to issue the warrant of possession. It was also

urged that the sale certificate itself was issued beyond the

limitation period, and hence, the respondent was not entitled

to seek enforcement of the decree. The petitioners also

objected to the respondent's attempt to transfer the

agricultural electricity connection relating to Khata No. 38-4-

4, which, according to them, was impermissible under law. It

was further submitted that the executing court did not have

the power to withdraw its earlier confirmation order dated

07.04.2005, as such an appealable order could only be

challenged through an appeal.

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3. The respondent, in reply, contended that the provisions of

the Limitation Act were not applicable to applications under

Order 21 Rule 95 CPC, since the sale had already been

completed and the sale certificate duly issued and registered

in the respondent's favour, thereby conferring absolute

ownership. It was also submitted that the executing court

was competent to review or modify its own order in the

interest of justice, and that the petitioners, being judgment

debtors, had no locus to raise objections beyond the scope of

Order 21 Rule 95 CPC.

4. After hearing both sides, the learned court below, vide order

dated 15.07.2010, dismissed the petitioners' application,

observing that no proceedings under Order 21 Rule 95 CPC

were pending and that if the petitioners had any objections

regarding the auction amount, the same could have been

raised during the execution proceedings. Aggrieved by the

said order dated 15.07.2010, the petitioners have preferred

the present Revision Petition before this Court.

5. The counsel for the petitioners submitted that in Execution

Case No. 6/1993, arising out of a decree dated 03.05.1993

passed in favour of State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, the

disputed agricultural land measuring 38 Bigha 1 Biswa was

put to auction, wherein respondent Shantilal was declared

the highest bidder for ₹6,00,201/- on 09.04.2004. However,

the mandatory deposit of 1/4th of the bid amount under

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Order 21 Rule 84 CPC and the balance 3/4th within fifteen

days under Rule 85 CPC was never made, rendering the

entire auction proceeding void under Rule 86 CPC. Despite

repeated judicial notings showing non-deposit of the amount,

the learned Executing Court erroneously confirmed the sale

on 07.04.2005 and later issued possession warrant on

28.01.2008 under Order 21 Rule 95 CPC, without notice to

the judgment debtors and beyond the limitation period

prescribed under Article 134 of the Limitation Act. The

impugned orders are therefore without jurisdiction, in

violation of the mandatory provisions of Order 21 Rules 84,

85, and 86 CPC, hence the entire sale proceedings and

consequential orders are nullity and liable to be set aside in

the interest of justice.

6. Learned counsel for the respondent submitted that the

petitioner/judgment debtor had taken a loan from the State

Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur by mortgaging the agricultural

land of late Shri Mangi Lal, and upon default, the bank

obtained a recovery decree and initiated execution

proceedings pending since 1993. As repeated attempts to

auction the property failed, the respondent offered

₹6,00,000/- for purchase and deposited a bank guarantee of

the same amount on 12.12.2000, demonstrating bona fides.

The auction was ultimately held on 08-09.04.2004, where

the respondent's bid of ₹6,00,201/- was the highest and was

duly confirmed by the Court on 02.02.2006. The petitioner's

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objections under Order 21 Rule 58 CPC were dismissed on

24.09.2007, and his appeal before the High Court was also

rejected on 21.11.2008, rendering the sale final. The

respondent thereafter deposited the full amount, got the sale

deed registered on 19.11.2007, and obtained possession on

19.02.2008. It was argued that the present objections are

barred by res judicata and that the bank guarantee, being

equivalent to cash, satisfies the requirement under Order 21

Rules 84 and 85 CPC. The execution proceedings were

lawfully conducted, and the impugned order dated

15.07.2010 rejecting the petitioner's belated objection is just

and proper.

7. Heard learned counsels present for the parties and gone

through the materials available on record.

8. On a careful reading of the record and the rival contentions,

the chronology of events emerges as the determinative

factual substrate. The decree in favour of the decree-holder

(State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur) was executed by

proceedings culminating in the auction of the subject

agricultural parcel (38 Bigha 1 Biswa) on 9th April, 2004.

The auction-sheet and subsequent court-notings disclose

repeated and material lacunae: the highest bidder

(respondent) was declared on the said date at ₹6,00,201/-,

yet there is contemporaneous and consistent notation on the

order-sheets that the mandatory deposit of one-fourth of the

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bid amount was not made at the time of declaration; further

entries in order sheets of court below spanning 2004-2006

repeatedly record the non-deposit or non-availability of the

auction price in Court. Against this backdrop the lower Court

proceeded, first to confirm and thereafter to withdraw

confirmation, and thereafter to confirm again , a vacillating

course of judicial action which, on the admitted state of the

record, requires close legal scrutiny because the validity of

each subsequent step in the execution chain necessarily

turns upon whether the mandatory statutory preconditions

were satisfied when they were required to be satisfied.

9. The statutory architecture which governs court-sales in

execution proceedings is lucid and peremptory. Order XXI

Rules 84 and 85 CPC impose two concomitant obligations on

the person declared purchaser: (i) an immediate deposit of

twenty-five per cent of the purchase-money upon declaration

of sale (Rule 84), and (ii) payment of the balance within

fifteen days from the date of sale (Rule 85). Rule 86

prescribes the sanction for default, forfeiture of the deposit

(if the Court so thinks fit) and re-sale of the property, with

the purchaser forfeiting any claim to the property or the

sums realized on re-sale. Rules 84 and 85 of Order XXI CPC

are mandatory and that non-compliance with these

provisions vitiates the sale, rendering it a nullity(void ab

initio) and not merely voidable. In particular, the

requirement of deposit is not directory or permissive but

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mandatory and, consequentially, a court-sale completed in

breach of these provisions cannot be allowed to stand.

10.Applying the statutory mandate to the admitted facts, there

is an ineluctable legal difficulty in sustaining the sale or the

orders founded upon it. The Court's own order-entries of 28-

04-2004, 15-01-2005 and 02-08-2005 (and subsequent

dates) manifest that the Court repeatedly noted that the

purchase price was not deposited. If the 25% deposit was

not made immediately after declaration, and the balance was

not paid within fifteen days as required by Rule 85, then the

statutory consequence prescribed by Rule 86 would

inexorably follow, the sale must be re-auctioned and the

defaulting purchaser loses all right to claim under the

purported sale. To treat the contrary would be to permit

judicial legerdemain whereby a sale is clothed with the

attributes of completeness notwithstanding the statutory

infirmity at the very foundation of the sale. Such a course is

antithetical to settled law and to the canon that "where the

foundation is vitiated, the superstructure falls with it" , a

principle long recognized in execution jurisprudence.

11.The respondent seeks to meet the statutory defect by

pointing to a bank guarantee, past deposit entries and

subsequent registration of a sale-deed. This submission,

however, must be tested by rigid legal standards. First, the

jurisprudence is replete with decisions that eschew

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formalistic expedients where statutory prescription is

mandatory: deposits required under the auction rules must

ordinarily be made in the manner and within the time

prescribed; deposits by means impermissible to the rule (for

instance by post-dated instruments or modes not accepted

as immediate payment) have been held inadequate to cure

non-compliance. When a particular course of performance is

prescribed by law, any deviation or alternative route stands

prohibited. Courts are bound to adhere to the manner

expressly provided and not to invent parallel procedures

inconsistent with statutory command. Equally, the mere

registration of a deed , if procured in consequence of a sale

which was void for want of compliance with Order XXI ,

cannot retroactively confer validity on proceedings which

were statutorily defective ab initio. The law does not permit

procedural ratification to be manufactured by subsequent

events when the original act was void and without

jurisdiction. Where, as here, Court records themselves cast

doubt over the existence or continuance of the requisite

deposit, the burden of establishing regularity and compliance

lies heavily upon the successful purchaser and the decree-

holder.

12.There exists no provision under the Code of Civil Procedure

which empowers a Court to treat previously deposited or

retained sums as a form of guarantee for validating a sale.

The Code prescribes specific and exhaustive modes for

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conducting court sales, and such sales must strictly conform

to those statutory procedures. Any deviation, however well-

intentioned, cannot substitute compliance with the express

provisions of Order XXI.

13.The doctrine of nullity and the consequences of a defective

foundation warrant detailed exposition. The proposition that

a sale in execution can be held "null and void" for breach of

Rules 84-86 is not an abstract or technical nicety ,it is a

practical rule of law that protects judgment-debtors from

deprivation of proprietary rights by means that fall short of

the statutory yardstick. The maxim fraus omnia corrumpit

(fraud vitiates everything) ,not in the sense of moral

imputations but in its juridical application , captures the

underlying rationale: where the process by which title is

purportedly divested is materially tainted, all derivative acts

grounded upon that process cannot be allowed to subserve

an illusory transfer of title. Once the mandatory deposit

requirements are proved to be unmet, the sale is to be

treated as if it never gave rise to an enforceable right in the

purchaser. In that event, subsequent steps such as issuance

of sale-certificate, registration or orders for delivery of

possession fall to be treated as corollaries of a void act and

are themselves susceptible to being set aside.

14.The procedural posture in which these objections were urged

by the petitioners is also germane. The petitioners invoked

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Section 47 CPC read with Section 151 CPC to bring to the

Court's attention the anomalies and to seek appropriate

reliefs; they raised limitation-based objections and the

fundamental failure to comply with Order XXI. Section 47

CPC empowers the Court to examine whether it has acted

within jurisdiction and to rectify proceedings taken without

jurisdiction. Where a sale is void because of breach of

mandatory auction provisions, Section 47 CPC is an

appropriate vehicle to impugn the execution proceedings,

more particularly where the failure is intrinsic and affects the

very competence of the executing Court to cause transfer of

possession or make an absolute sale. The record shows that

the executing Court, notwithstanding the repeated notings of

non-deposit and the petitioners' pleadings, proceeded to

issue warrant for delivery of possession under Rule 95 of

Order XXI CPC on 28-01-2008 and thereafter recorded in the

impugned order that there was no pending Rule 95

application. The approach of the lower Court in making a

summary pronouncement without subject-matter

engagement with the cogent legal authorities and the

contemporaneous order-sheet annotations renders the

impugned order vulnerable to the criticism that it is perverse

and without adequate judicial application of mind.

15.The limitation point raised by the petitioners, namely that

the application for delivery of possession under Rule 95 is

barred by the Limitation Act (Article 134 as relied upon in

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the petition) and that the warrant was issued after the expiry

of the prescribed temporal window , must be considered in

the analytical mix. Two principles inform the resolution: (a)

the period for initiation of steps for delivery of possession

and for issuance of sale-certificate are matters which ought

to be determined with reference to the specific provisions of

Order XXI read with the Limitation Act and the settled

precedents that interpret the point from the perspective of

when a sale becomes 'absolute' for the purposes of running

of limitation; and (b) where a sale is in truth void from the

beginning for non-compliance with Rules 84-86, the question

of limitation in relation to a purported act which itself lacked

jurisdiction needs to be considered in light of the primary

nullity. If the sale never crystallized into an absolute and

lawful transfer by reason of statutory non-compliance,

subsequently framed limitation-based defences lose their

mooring. The jurisprudence affirms that Courts will not

become mute spectators to manifest illegality in execution

sales even if the remedy was not the neat procedural form

urged; in such cases the Court may, and indeed must,

correct the anomaly so as to prevent miscarriage of justice.

16.Having considered the rival submissions and the authorities

cited, the following legal propositions emerge as controlling

for the present controversy: (i) Order XXI Rules 84 and 85

are mandatory; deposit of one-fourth immediately and

balance within fifteen days are pre-conditions to any valid

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confirmation; (ii) non-compliance with those provisions

ordinarily renders the sale a nullity and triggers Rule 86

consequences; (iii) subsequent formalities (sale certificate,

registration, possession warrants) cannot confer validity

upon an antecedent void sale; (iv) a Court exercising its

supervisory or executing jurisdiction is under a duty to

examine whether the statutory pre-conditions have been

complied with before confirming and enforcing sales; and (v)

where the record itself discloses non-compliance, equity and

law both require that the rights purportedly acquired under

such sale cannot be allowed to crystallize into indefeasible

title. These propositions are not novel dicta but reflect the

settled current of execution jurisprudence as reiterated by

higher courts.

17.In the particular facts of this case, the executing Court's

repeated notations of non-deposit, the vacillation in

confirming / withdrawing confirmation and the subsequent

issuance of possession warrant without notice to the

judgment-debtors and in the face of ongoing objections,

collectively establish that the principal statutory conditions for

a valid sale (Order XXI Rr. 84 & 85) were not satisfied in the

manner and at the time the Code requires. The respondent's

reliance upon a bank guarantee and subsequent registration

cannot, in the circumstances, be allowed to operate as a

talisman which transmutes a defective proceeding into a valid

one. To permit that would be to countenance an end-run

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around mandatory statutory safeguards designed to protect

judgment-debtors from precipitate loss of property and to

ensure transparency and finality in execution processes.

18.In view of the foregoing discussion, this Court is of the view

that the impugned order dated 15.07.2010 insofar as it

refuses to entertain the petitioners' legitimate objections and

insofar as it sanctions the delivery of possession to the

purchaser, cannot be sustained. The revision petition must

therefore succeed and it is hereby allowed.

19.Accordingly, the following directions are issued:

(a) the confirmation of sale and all consequential orders,

including the sale certificate and the warrant of possession

issued pursuant to Order XXI Rule 95, be and are hereby set

aside as void ab initio;

(b) the purported sale in favour of Shri Shantilal declared on

09.04.2004 (and any subsequent confirmation resting on

that declaration) is declared null and void for non-compliance

with Order XXI Rules 84 and 85 and consequent operation of

Rule 86;

(c)Since the earlier sale has already been annulled and any

fresh proceedings would necessarily require initiation afresh,

the judgment-debtor, if desirous of satisfying the decree,

may avail the benefit of Rule 83 of Order XXI (postponement

of sale to enable judgment-debtor to raise the decretal

amount). The executing Court shall consider such request, if

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made, in accordance with law before proceeding to re-sale.

(d) The decree-holder is always at liberty to initiate and

conduct proceedings for sale strictly in accordance with the

procedure contemplated under Order XXI -- both under the