The main legal point established in the judgment is that the court has a duty under O.21 R.66 to ensure that a reasonable and adequate price is fetched for the property and that there is no distress sale. The court's failure to comply with this duty and accepting a bid of Rs. 1,01,000 despite the property's higher valuation constituted material irregularities.

1. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Jagannadha Raju, J.- C.M.A. No. 110 of 1992 is filed by the first judgment debtor, who filed E.A. No. 209 of 1989 under O.21. E.F.A. No. 21 of 1992 is filed by the second judgment debtor who was a guarantor, who filed E. A. No. 279 of 1989 to set aside the sale. He filed the application belatedly, but the court excused the delay and entertained the application to set aside the sale. Both the applications were disposed of by a common order dated 30th November, 1991 by the Principal Subordinate Judge, Thalassery. The learned Judge dismissed the applications on the ground that the sale cannot be set aside. The auction sale took place on 9th March 1989 and the properties were actually attached before the judgment on 6th July 1981.

2. Sri K. Chandrasekharan, learned senior counsel who led the arguments in E.F.A. No. 21 of 1992 contends that here is a case where an extremely valuable property has been sold for a paltry sum of Rs. 1,01,000 and the auction was conducted with several material irregularities. The inadequate price fetched by itself clearly indicates that prejudice has been caused to the judgment debtors. He points out that O.21 R.66 is not at all complied with. The sale proclamation was not drawn up in accordance with the mandatory provisions of the Code. He also contends that the price obtained is extremely low as is evident from two facts, (1) Long before the sale proclamation was settled in E.A. No. 390 of 1987, when the judgment debtor sought permission to sell the property the court passed an order to the effect that the property shall not be sold for less than Rs. 3,40,000. In spite of the court being aware of this particular fact and its earlier order, the court committed a blunder in fixing the value of the property in the sale proclamation as Rs. 1,00,000. He also contends that R.66(2)(e) and the second proviso to that rule are violated in the present case.

3. Sri O. Ramachandran Nambiar appearing for the appellant in C.M.A. No. 110 of 1992 contends that in this case there is no proper proclamation to save the sale and Form No. 29 of Appendix C is not at all complied with. The judicial officer did not even sign the proclamation and we also do not find any evidence of the same being signed by an authorised officer of the court. He also contends that O.21, R.64 casts a duty on the court and this duty has not been discharged. Mr. Nambiar relies upon the decisions in M/s Shalimar Cinema v. Bhasin Film Corporation AIR 1987 SC 2081 and Ambati Narasayya v. M. Subba Rao 1989 Suppl. (2) SCC 694

4. On behalf of the decree holder the learned counsel attacks the court auction sale on the ground that the amount of sale price fetched in the court auction is shockingly low and the various irregularities pointed out by the learned counsel who led arguments on behalf of the appellants are present. Here irregularities caused substantial injury to parties concerned.

5. On behalf of the auction purchaser respondent it is argued that whatever irregularities are now being canvassed are irregularities which took place prior to the settlement of the proclamation for sale and hence those irregularities cannot be urged in a petition under O.21 R.90. He places strong reliance upon the decisions in Antony v. Catholic Syrian Bank 1997 (2) KLT 341 and Sreedharan v. Union Bank of India 1992 (2) KLT 642.

6. The main points that arise for consideration in these appeals are (1) whether the court failed to perform its mandatory duty under O.21 R.66 and (2) whether the court auction sale is liable to be set aside on the ground that it fetched a low price of Rs. 1,01,000.

7. A perusal of the order of the lower court establishes the following facts. The decree holder contained three decrees against the first judgment debtor, P. V. K. Nambiar. Huge amounts were owing to the bank the decree holder. While execution proceedings were pending in O.S. No. 245 of 1980 the judgment debtor filed a petition