The main legal point established in the judgment is that objections regarding correct valuation of properties will be adjudicated by the Recovery Officer at the appropriate stage, and there is no requirement to give the debtor an opportunity before the valuation is made and the reserve price is fixed.

A. M. Khanwilkar, C. J.

1. This petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India takes exception to the order passed by the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as Appellate Tribunal') dated 08.10.2004 (Annexure-P/1), as also by the Debts Recovery Tribunal (hereinafter referred to ' Tribunal') dated 12.03.2004 (Annexure-P/3) and of the Recovery Officer dated 12.01.2004 (Annexure-P/2). The petitioner by amending the petition has asked for further appropriate writ or direction in relation to the order dated 28.10.2004 passed by the Recovery Officer in O.A. Execution No.14/2002.

2. Briefly stated, the petitioner is a Certificated Debtor. For recovering the amount from the petitioner, the Recovery Officer issued a public auction notice dated 15.11.2003, which was published on 10.12.2003 in the local newspapers. The auction notice refers to four properties, which were ordered to be sold in auction. Out of that, only two properties are situated at Raipur (State of Chhattisgarh) and were made subject-matter of objection filed by the petitioner regarding valuation thereof. From the objection filed by the petitioner, essentially, two points can be discerned. Firstly, that the properties were not properly valued and; secondly, the reserve price mentioned in the auction notice in respect of the said properties were based on valuation report of year 2002, which according to the petitioner, could not have been made the basis for determining the reserve price. This objection was considered by the Recovery Officer and has been answered as follows:

(Vernacular matter omitted.........Ed.)

3. Against this decision, the petitioner carried the matter before the Debts Recovery Tribunal raising diverse pleas firstly, that the valuation of the properties in question was not correct. Secondly, the same was based on valuation report of year 2002. Thirdly, the Recovery Officer was obliged to decide the objections taken by the petitioner, inter alia, non-compliance of Rule 53 of Schedule-II of the Income Tax Act, 1962 (for brevity ' Income Tax Act') before proceeding with the auction process. Further, the Recovery Officer overlooked the formation of cartel by the participants during the auction. The Recovery Officer did not apply his mind and failed to stop the auction process in spite of such illegal activities and instead hastened the process within two minutes. The actual value of the properties was much more than the price offered during the auction. The Bank would be the loser — because of less amount recovered in the auction process. The petitioner made an offer before the Debts Recovery Tribunal that he would bear the expenditure incurred by the Bank for putting the properties to re-auction, if the sale was to be cancelled. The auction proceedings were in violation of principles of natural justice.

4. These contentions were refuted by the Bank firstly on the ground that the remedy of appeal against the order of Recovery Officer was pre mature. In that, the objection taken by the petitioner about the valuation of the properties was still undecided and pending for adjudication before the Recovery Officer. That the petitioner would get opportunity to apply for setting aside the auction sale under Rule 60 of Schedule-II of the Income Tax Act. Further, the petitioner has not disclosed all the material and relevant facts. The valuation report obtained by the Bank was from an approved Valuer. As the State of Chhattisgarh was established w.e.f. 01.11.2000 and Raipur was notified as the State Capital, there was spurt in the property price in Raipur. This was taken into account while fixing the reserve price and during the auction. It was contended on behalf of the Bank that the valuation certificate obtained by the petitioner from Pilliwar was incorrect. Infact, said Pilliwar was earlier in the panel of respondent-Bank, but, due to his bad reputation, no work was entrusted to him and the process to remove him from