Lord Buckmaster:-

The difficulties with which their Lordships are confronted in this case are not connected with any question of law, nor do they arise from the recorded evidence of the witnesses. They are associated with inferences drawn from documents which are not before the Board and from circumstances attending the hearing before the High Court which it is now impossible to reproduce. Their dispute entirely depends upon certain questions of fact. These questions were all answered by the District Judge, who heard the case in the first instance, in favour of the appellants; and, but for the circumstances to which allusion has been made, it would have been difficult for the respondents to convince their Lordships that they should support the reasoning of the High Court by whom this judgment was overruled.

The history of this litigation extends for more than half a century. It appears that on the 22nd May 1872, two ladies, whose names appear as the first two respondents to this appeal, though one has recently died, obtained a decree in the Privy Council against one Fateh Narayan Choudhri for a sum which now exceeds 90,000 rupees. The proceedings, which were temporarily concluded by this judgment, are said to have been commenced on the 20th April, 1859. On the 18th March 1887, and the 24th August 1888, the third respondent to this appeal who is the Maharaja Rameshwar Singh Bahadur, obtained two decrees from the Court of the District Judge of Mozufferpore and from the High Court of Calcutta respectively against the respondents. The amounts due under such judgments are said to he 21,855 rupees. The said Fateh Narayan was entitled to an undivided one-fifth share in seventy-one properties in forty-five villages, and the first two respondents endeavoured to execute their decree by attachment and sale of the said share. Fateh Narayan, however, denied that be possessed any such interest and it became necessary to institute proceedings to establish that this right existed. These proceedings were ultimately decided by the High Court of Calcutta on the 30th August 1898 in favour of the first two respondents. But the difficulties of these two ladies were not thereby ended, for the third respondent — the Maharaja — attached under his decrees their rights against the said, Fateh Narayan and, on the 1st May 1909,applied that the said one-fifth share of the judgment-debtor Fateh Narayan in the said properties should be sold.

It is alleged that in these proceedings the usual notices were issued and the sale proclamations were served, the date of the sale being fixed for the 15th September 1900. This execution was, however, stayed on the application of the two first respondents, who claimed that these decrees of the Maharaja were barred by the Statute of Limitations. This claim was ultimately rejected, but fresh proclamations became necessary under S. 291 of the Civil Procedure Code, and it is these proceedings that have given rise to the dispute out of which the present appeal proceeds.

The sale of one-fifth of a considerable portion of the properties was in fact effected on the 17th June 1901, and nearly the whole of the property was purchased by the appellants, no other intending purchasers being present at the sale — the aggregate price for the whole being 12,115 rupees. On the 17th July 1901, a petition was presented by the first two respondents seeking to set the sale aside, based upon many allegations the most material for the purpose of the present appeal being that the sale proclamation was not served on all the Mouzahs, that the return of service filed in the Court was filed in collusion with the purchasers, the present appellants, and that the sale was accordingly concluded at a price far below the real value a result induced by the collusion of the processerver with the present appellants, who were co-sharers of the judgment-debtor in the property sold. This petition was dismissed by the Subordinate Judge on the 11th March 1904. In th