The judgment-debtor in E.P. 193/95 in O.S.57/1985 on the file of the Subordinate Judge’s Court, Neyyattinkara, is the revision petitioner. The said suit was one for realization of money. The suit was decreed and in execution of the decree an item of property belonging to the revision petitioner/judgment-debtor was brought to sale and purchased by the plaintiff/decree-holder. E.A. 297/2003 was filed by the plaintiff/decree-holder/auction purchaser for delivery of the property purchased by him. The revision petitioner resisted the said application by filing objections to the same. Overruling the objections the court below, as per the impugned order dt.12.8.2005 allowed the application for delivery filed by the auction purchaser. It is the said order which is assailed in this revision petition.

2. I heard Advocate Sri. Shinod G.P., the learned counsel appearing for the revision petitioner as well as the learned counsel appearing for the decree-holder/auction purchaser.

3. Adv. Sri John Joseph Vettikkad appearing for the decree-holder/auction purchaser made the following submissions before me in support of the impugned order:-

The contention of the judgment-debtor/revision petitioner that E.A.297/2003 filed by the decree-holder for delivery of the property is barred by limitation is untenable. Under Art.134 of the Limitation Act, 1963 the period of limitation runs only from the date when the sale becomes absolute. The sale certificate in this case was actually issued on 17.3.2003. It is only when the sale becomes absolute and sale certificate is issued to the court-auction purchaser under Order XXI Rule 94 C.P.C., can he apply for delivery under Order XXI Rule 95 C.P.C. In other words, the sale becomes absolute within the meaning of Order XXI Rule 95 C.P.C. only after the issue of the sale certificate (vide P. Kuppan v. Jayarama Chetty and another – AIR 1996 Madras 167). If so, the application for delivery filed within one year of the issue of sale certificate, was well within time and the contention of the revision petitioner that it was barred by limitation is unsustainable. A court sale does not become absolute on the passing of a mere order of confirmation of sale as enjoined by Order XXI Rule 92 (1) C.P.C., but it acquires the attribute of finality or becomes absolute only on the termination of the proceedings started to set aside the court sale or to set aside the order confirming the sale (vide Narayana Pillai Krishna Pillai v. Damodara Pillai Velayudha Pillai – AIR 1967 Ker. 159). In the instant case, even though the order confirming the sale was passed on 1.6.2002, the judgment-debtor/revision petitioner had filed C.R.P. 2829/02 before the High Court on 17.9.2002 against the dismissal of his application for issuance of a commission filed as E.A. 77/2000. Ground No.C in the said C.R.P. was that the sale was liable to be set aside. In the decision reported in 1969 (II) M.L.J. 163 Badrabahu Nainar v. Devendra Nainar it has been held that the question as to whether a sale has become absolute or not within the meaning of Art. 134 of the Limitation Act depends upon the fact whether any legal proceedings intimately connected with the sale and having a nexus to the original proceedings relating to the sale is still pending so as to create a cloud of doubt about its finality and if there is any contemporaneous proceedings taken by any party to the suit questioning the same with a view to postpone it or avoid it and if there is any perceptible connection between such pending proceedings and the sale itself, then it can reasonably be presumed that the finality in the court sale has not yet reached. In the aforesaid Civil Revision Petition filed by the judgment-debtor he had filed C.M.P. 709/2002 in which all further proceedings in execution of the decree had been stayed by the High Court from 17.9.2002 till 9.7.2003 when the C.R.P. was ultimately dismissed. During the aforesaid period of stay, the auction purchaser was pre