IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.16253 of 1989 (O&M) Date of decision: 13.10.2011 Bhupinder Singh ....Petitioner versus State of Haryana, through the Secretary to Government of Haryana, Rehabilitation Department, Civil Secretariat, Chandigarh, and others. ....Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. N.S. Shekhawat, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. K. C. Gupta, Senior DAG, Haryana, for respondents 1 to 4. None for respondent No.5. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? Yes. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? Yes. ---- K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. CM No.13493 of 2011 Application for restoration of the writ petition at its original number is allowed. Civil Writ Petition No.16253 of 1989 2. The writ petition challenges the decision of the Joint Secretary Rehabilitation-cum-Settlement Commissioner, arrayed as respondent No.4, setting aside the auction sale held as per the Rules for Sale of Surplus Rural Property. The petitioner was admittedly Civil Writ Petition No.16253 of 1989 (O&M) - 2 - declared the highest bidder for three items of properties described in khasra Nos.54//17/2 which was described however in the auction notice as 54//17/25, 24 and 17/4 in Village Uchat, Tehsil and District Mohindergarh. After the auction was held, the 5th respondent herein, made a complaint for setting aside the sale contending, inter alia, that his father had been in possession of the properties for more than 50 years and he was prepared to offer higher price. His contention was the property itself was mis-described in one of the khasra numbers, namely, 54//17/2 was wrongly described as 54//17/25. The Additional Officer before whom the objection was taken rejected the complaint but in a revision filed by the 5th respondent to the 4th respondent. The authority set it aside on the only ground that there was mis-description of property. 3. The learned counsel points out that it was not as if there was any particular prejudice shown by the mis-description and even in the warrant of delivery, the property was correctly shown by the khasra number. The complaint itself was not in accordance with the relevant rules, for, it required the complainant to make through Rule 9(b) to deposit a sum equivalent to the highest bid plus 20% of the earnest money along with an undertaking to buy the property at his enhanced value if as a result of such re-auction the property did not fetch a higher price than the amount deposited. 4. I find that a mis-description could surely figure as a ground for setting aside a sale, if there had been any allegation of a Civil Writ Petition No.16253 of 1989 (O&M) - 3 - prejudice such as when it is pointed out that on account of such mis-description, people were misled into thinking that yet another inferior property was offered for sale; or there was a deliberate mistake to mislead resulting in loss to the exchequer; or it was done in connivance with public authority by the successful bidder in securing a wrong description. No such allegations were made nor was there any such finding entered. It must be noticed that the sale was being set aside not in exercise of any suo motu powers of the authority assuming that such power existed that the sale was vitiated by mis-description of property. On the other hand, sale was sought to set aside on the basis of a complaint. If such a complaint could not have been entertained as per the relevant rules, the purport of which I have already extracted above, viz., without complying with the requirement of the Rules, the 5th respondent could not have sought for the sale being set aside. The order of the 4th respondent was clearly erroneous, for, he was allowing for a complaint to be taken on board who did not fulfill the formalities necessary for consideration of request for being entrained and adjudicated upon. 5. The impugned order is set aside and the writ petition is allowed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE 13.10.2011 sanjeev