The central legal point established in the judgment is the duty of parties to disclose all relevant facts to the Court and the Court's inherent power to prevent abuse of its process.

Walter Salis Schwabe, K.C., C.J.

1. This is an appeal from an order of Kumaraswami Sastri, J., refusing to confirm a sale made at Court auction. He has refused to confirm the sale on the ground that all the facts were not placed before him when the reserve price was fixed and when the plaintiff obtained leave to bid. There is a misapprehension on the part of the learned Judge in that the application for leave to bid was to him, but the application to fix the reserve price was to the Registrar and not to him. I do not think it is enough to say, in order to refuse to confirm a sale, that all the facts were not put before the Court on the two occasions referred to. But, in my judgment, the Court has an inherent power that the Court has been misled either in giving leave to bid or in fixing the reserve price. This is only an instance of the inherent power possessed by all Courts to prevent an abuse of the process of the Court, but, of course, the Court will not use that inherent power unless it has had all the facts fully before it and is satisfied that it has been misled. I think the principle is that, in order to show that the Court has been misled, it is necessary to show either actual misstatements to the Court or nondisclosure to the Court of relevant facts unknown to the Court and which there was a duty to bring before the Court. How far that duty goes, in applications for leave to bid and in applications to fix the reserve price may, I think, be found in the judgment of the Privy Council in Mahomed Mira Ravuthar v. Savvasi Vijaya Raghunadha Gopalar (1899) I.L.R. 23 Mad. p. 227 quoting passages from the judgments of Lord Selborne and Lord Fitz-Gerald in Coaks v. Boswell (1886) 11 A.C. p. 232, and they come at least to this, that if a party professes to give the Court information on any particular subject with a view to guide its discretion and obtain its approval, he is bound to lay before the Court all the material information he possesses on that particular subject.

2. There were two stages in which the present plaintiff gave information to the Court. The first was to the Judge himself on his application for leave to bid and I am not prepared to say that there were materials, relevant to the consideration as to whether he should be allowed to bid or not, known to him which he did not disclose. I think he did give a very meagre statement of facts on that occasion, but I am not convinced that the full statement of facts was relevant for the consideration of the Court in deciding whether he should bid or not, because on that application certainly the main question for the Court to consider is whether it is to the advantage or disadvantage of every one concerned in order to obtain the highest price that the plaintiff should be allowed to bid or not. The second stage in which he gave information was on his second application which was to the Registrar, and that was under Rule 205 of the original side rules by which the applicant for sale has to put in an affidavit stating what, in his opinion, is the best time and place of sale and method of advertising the same, the lots, if any, into which the property should be divided, and the market value of, and the reserve price to be fixed for the property. Then under Rule 206 the Registrar is to determine the various matters and, in the event of any objection being raised to the lots, the market value or reserve price mentioned in the affidavit, the question is to be determined by a Judge in Chambers. Now, an affidavit was put in of which the tenor was that it was very doubtful whether the judgment-debtors had any interest in the property at all which was proposed to be sold, that they had claims to it which were subject to litigation, and the outcome of that litigation, like most litigation, was uncertain and that it was impossible, therefore, to give any idea of the market value. The Registrar not being satisfied that that was a proper compliance with the Rule, a further paragr