The judgment emphasizes the importance of 'Audi alteram partem' in quasi-judicial proceedings and highlights that jurisdictional facts, such as notice under S.80 CPC, are not dependent on the consent or waiver of a party.

1. Appeal by the 1st defendant, continued by her legal representative.

2. The facts are thus: S. No. 529/5 and 11 of Nedumpana village belonged to the 1st defendant. It was sold for arrears of land revenue on 21st Karkitakam 1116 (1941) and purchased by the 2nd defendant, who was also put: in possession by the revenue authority. Ext. P2 is the relative sale certificate, and Ext. P3 the delivery report dated 3rd Ranni 1119 (1943). On 19th Ranni 1119 (1943) the 2nd defendant sold the western half of the property to the plaintiff as per Ext. P1 and the eastern half to one Cheriyan by another deed. In 1121 (1946) the 1st defendant applied to the Collector to set aside the revenue sale. Though the Collector dismissed it, the Board of Revenue, in revision, allowed it and set aside the sale in 1950. The 2nd defendant and Cheriyan were alone made parties to the proceedings. The plaintiff was not made a party to the proceedings either before the Collector or before the Board of Revenue and was not therefore heard in the matter. The 2nd defendant took the matter in. further appeal before the Government, also without making the plaintiff a party, but it was dismissed. Thereupon the 1st defendant moved the Collector to put her in possession of the property. Getting scent of it, the plaintiff issued a notice, under S.80 C. P. C., to the Chief Secretary to the Government on July 30, 1957 and instituted this suit the very next day. The 1st defendant resisted the suit on merits and the State challenged the maintainability of the suit for want of sufficient notice under S.80 C. P. C. The Munsiff, Quilon, dismissed the suit holding it to be not maintainable for want of sufficient notice under S.80, and adding that the plaintiff was not a necessary party to the proceedings to set aside the revenue sale and is not entitled to claim adverse possession for any period before date of Government's final order on the application to set aside the sale. On appeal the Additional District Judge, Quilon, held that notice under S.80 C. P. C. having been issued by the plaintiff to the State, the suit cannot be dismissed as not maintainable after 5 years of its institution on the technical plea that on the date of institution it was premature, and that the order of the Board of Revenue would not bind the plaintiff who was no party thereto and decreed the suit and issued an injunction restraining the 1st defendant from dispossessing the plaintiff from his moiety of the property. Hence this second appeal.

3. Two questions emerge for decision: firstly, whether the Revenue Board's order would bind the plaintiff who was no party thereto; and secondly, whether the 1st defendant can claim a non-suit for lack of the statutory notice to the Government.

4. In Ganpat Rai Hiralal v. Aggarwal Chamber of Commerce (AIR. 1952 SC. 409) an'amendment petition' under S.152 CPC. is held not to be a continuation of the suit but in the nature of an independent proceeding governed by the law prevailing on its date and not by the law on date of suit. It cannot then be doubted that the proceeding to set aside the revenue sale is not a continuation of the sale proceedings but a collateral independent proceeding. Here, the proceeding to set aside the sale was instituted five years after the confirmation of the sale and two years after delivery of the property to the purchaser. It must be held to have been instituted only on the day the application was made to the Collector to set aside the sale and governed by the law and conditions of that day. Admittedly, before that date the 2nd defendant the auction-purchaser had assigned the property in moieties to the plaintiff and Cheriyan. It appears that Cheriyan got himself impleaded in the proceedings. Plaintiff was not made a party to the proceedings throughout its course. The setting aside of a revenue sale affects rights of parties and S.33A of the Revenue Recovery Act (Travancore Act I of 1068), requires specific grounds to be mad