1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR Letters Patent Appeal No.14 of 2009 IN Writ Petition No.1865 of 2006 [decided] [Maroti Rama Hage Vs. Distt. Dy. Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Buldana & ors.] Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. Mr. P.B. Patil, Adv., for appellant. Mr. Mandpe, AGP for respondent no.1. Mr. V.N. Morande, Adv., for respondent No.2. Mr. S.V. Sirpurkar, Adv., for respondent no.5. ----- CORAM : B.P. DHARMADHIKARI AND F.M. REIS, JJ. DATE : 29th July, 2009. 1. Heard. 2. Appellant, who is a land owner, is challenging the auction conducted by respondent no.4 for recovery of dues of respondent no.3. Respondent No.5 is the highest bidder in whose favour sale has been confirmed. Contention is that as upset price was never fixed, and in any 2 case, as Special Recovery Officer is not authorized to fix that price, the auction, as held, is invalid. Our attention has been invited to impugned order passed by District Deputy Registrar, i.e., respondent no.1, in favour of present appellant, where in Paragraph 1, it has been mentioned that respondent no.4 was authorized to conduct auction, but then he was not delegated power to fix the upset price. The attention is invited to provisions of Section 156 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, which permit the Registrar or his delegate to conduct such auction. The document, by which powers of Registrar are conferred upon Distt. Dy. Registrar or Asstt. Registrar, has not come before the Court. The provisions of Rule 107 of the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Rules, 1961, nowhere stipulate that the upset price is to be fixed by any particular authority and, in fact, Rules do not contain any specific provision there for. The auction notice published on 17th March, 2004 by Special Recovery Officer mentions the market value of property as per report of Talathi to be Rs. 30,000/-, and Condition No.3 of the auction stipulates that the bid less than the upset price will not be accepted. Respondent No.5 tendered Rs.60,000-00 and the same were accepted on 25th March, 2004 by Special Recovery Officer and then present appellant approached Distt. Dy. Registrar. The Distt. Dy. Registrar found that upset price could not have been fixed by Special 3 Recovery Officer and the paper for accepting said upset price had been received by his office after the auction. Therefore, he refused to accept the confirmation in favour of respondent no.5, and respondent no.5 then approached the learned Single Judge in the Writ Petition. 3. In his Judgment dated 27th August, 2008, the learned Single Judge has considered controversy, and has found that the property sold was a dry crop land admeasuring 0.68 Are and valuation worked out lateron by Asstt. Registrar at Rs.65,280/- was on the basis of presumption that the land was irrigated land. It is also found that Circular dated 18th July, 2004, which came later could not have been applied to said auction. 4. We have considered the Judgment delivered by learned Single Judge and also the order passed by respondent no.1 in favour of present appellant. 5. It is to be noted that in auction notice itself, the market price was clearly mentioned and auction was conducted with said price in mind. The appellant has tried to challenge the said price by contending that the land was irrigated land and, therefore, its market value was Rs.65,280-00. However, this fact is found to be incorrect. On the contrary, Distt. Dy. Registrar has earlier found that in 4 the Ready Reckoner dated 6th May, 2004, the value of said land was shown as Rs.21,760/- only. In the circumstances, we are not inclined to interfere in the matter. Letters Patent Appeal is dismissed. Judge Judge |Hedau| 5