( 1 ) THIS First Appeal From Order arises out of proceedings under the Provincial Insolvency Act, 1920.

( 2 ) THE appellant filed a petition under Section 10 of the Act before the court of the District judge, Mathura for being declared an insolvent on the ground that he was unable to pay his debts amounting to Rs. 50,000/-from his assets. The petition was contested by the Income-tax Officer and the Sales Tax Officer, Mathura, who, along with other creditors, are opposite parties to this appeal.

( 3 ) A date was fixed for the hearing of the petition, as provided under Section 24 of the Act, and the appellant examined himself in support of his case, in his statement the appellant admitted that he had not shown certain items of his properties in the list of assets gives in the petition. He categorically stated that he had omitted to show in his assets the number and the value of the 500 shares which he owned in the paid up capital of some Textile Mills, as also, a necklace of pearls consisting of 100 to 125 beads, whose weight or value he was unable to give before the Court. On being questioned he expressed his inability to give the details of the whereabouts of the textile mills in which he owned his shares, as he did not know the same. It was also brought out in his evidence that there was a Motor Lorry No. US. 0852 which was owned by Thakur Ladll raman Trust and was plying at Tundla-Etah Road, and the appellant was a trustee in the Trust. This Trust was alleged by him to have been created by his wife, and the expenses of the Trust were stated to be met by the income derived from running the lorry as a public vehicle. It was also brought out in his evidence that he had certain money decrees against certain parties but had not taken proper steps to realise the same. The appellant did not produce any other evidence in support of his petition.

( 4 ) IN this state of evidence, the learned District Judge Mathura came to the conclusion that the appellant had deliberately concealed certain items of his properties by omitting to show them in the list of the properties attached to his petition and he had deliberately refrained from giving to the court any approximate value of those concealed items. The learned District judge held that the appellant did not want to pay off his creditors and he had manipulated the ownership of the motor Lorry in such a way that it may be beyond the reach of his creditors. The learned Judge disbelieved his evidence and held that as the appellant had deliberately withheld properties from being shown in his petition as his assets, and as he had been inactive in realising his assets to pay off his debts, he was not entitled to protection of the insolvency court. In effect, the learned judge was of the view that the appellant had failed to discharge the onus which lay on him to prove that he was unable to pay off his debts, and, therefore, he rejected his petition.

( 5 ) LEARNED counsel for the appellant has contended before us that the order passed by the learned district Judge is unsustainable, because it has been satisfactorily proved that the appellant, with all his resources, was not in a position to pay off his debts. He has also contended that the learned District Judge did not apply his mind to this aspect of the question and has not given any finding that the appellant was not unable to pay his debts, and that the learned Judge had on the other hand erroneously rejected his petition on the ground that he had concealed a few items of his properties, which, the learned counsel contended, cannot in law be a ground for rejecting the petition at this stage. In support of his proposition the learned counsel relied on a judgment of the privy Council reverted in Chhatrapat Singh Dugar v. Kharag Singh Lachmiram, 15 All LJ 87 : (AIR 1916 PC 64), and also on a Full Bench decision of this Court In the case of Triloki Nath v. Badri Das, reported in 1lr 36 All 250 : (AIR 1914 All 17 (2) ).

( 6 ) WE may