LexRAM CHANDRA ARYA versus MAN SINGH & ANR.
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572 RAM CHANDRA ARY A A v. MAN SINGH & ANR. December 8, 1967 ' ·' B [J. C. SHAH, V. RAMASWAMI AND V. BRARGAVA, JJ.] Code of Cfril Procedut< (Act 5 of 1908), 0. 35, r. 15-Suit again&t huiatic l'.'ithout appointm:!nt of a guardinn.-ad./ite~Decree in swit whether c nullity-Sale in execution of such decrte whtthtr voki. An ex-part!! decree "'·a~ p~ssed aitainst R in a money suit and in exe· curion thereof his house was sold. It was purchased by the appellanrs father. Formal possession was given :o the purchaser but R continued 11<> C reside in the house till bis death in 1945. As be died without bcin the Maharaja of Jaipur whose subject he was took possession of the bouoe. The appellanl"s father then filed a wit for the possession of the ho .... The suit was contested on the ground that R was a lunatic and Ii.nee the earlier suit had been instituted against him without appointment of. a guardian-cd../item, the decree in that suit was a nullity and the execu- tion sale void. This defence was accepted by the trial coun, the ~ D appellate court, and the High Court. By special leave the appellant C&lllC 10 this Court. HELD : It is a well-<;etlled principle that if a decree is pa5'ed against a minor \\.'ilhout appointment of a guardian, the decree is a nullity and is Toid and not merely voidable. This principle becomes applicable to Ille cage of a lunatic in view of r. 15 of 0.12 of the Code of Civil Procedure. so that the decree obtained against R was a decree which had to treateol E "" without iurio;diction and ;·oid. f574 A-BJ A sale is void ab initio if it is held in execution of a decree "'hiCh i~ a nu11ity and, con'iequentlv. to he treated as non~xistcnt. In the pre- sent case therefore no rights could he acquired by the purchaser when he nurportcd h) rurch:tcoc th~ hou'.,~ in execution of the decree against R. [576 BJ R having died without lea\ing any heir, the property naturally pas.ed· by e'Cheat to the Maharaja of Jaipur. That principle is clearly reco~ in Hindtl law. [576 CJ Jarwk Raj v. Gurdial Si11gh & Anr. [1967] 2 S.C.R. 77, Khiarajmal & ()rs. v. Dain1 &' Ors. 32 I.A. 23 and Afalkarjun v. NarhC!ri. 27 I.A. 216, referred to. Crvu. APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 379 of 1965. Appeal by special leave from the judgment and .Iecree dated D1:.~t>mbcr 21, 1961 of the Allahabad High Cou; l in Second Appeal No. 920 of 1952. J. P. Goyal and Sobhagmal Jain, for the appellant. S. P. Sinha and M. I. Khowaja, for the resjJ<J~dents. F G ft A B c D E F G H RAM CHANDRA v. MAN SINGH (Bhargava, J.) 573 The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Bhargava, J. This appeal arises out of a suit fer possession of a house which, at o'ne time, used to belong to one Ram Lal. ·On 11th January, 1939, one Ram Das filed suit No. 354 of 1939 against Ram Lal in the Court bf Judge, Small Causes, for recovery of a sum of Rs. 144/-. That suit was later transferred to the Court of the Munsif and an ex parte decree in that suit was pass- · ed on 27th March, 1939, after the Court held that Ram Lal had been sulEciently served. In execution of that decree, the house was sold and the sale certificate was issued on 21st January, 1941 in favour of Prabhu Dayal, the father of the appellant in this appe.al. Formal delivery of possession was taken and ·the certi- ficate of delivery of sale is dated 15th May, 1941. Adn1ittedly, Ram Lal continued to live in the house even thereafter, and on 19th September, 1945, he died leaving no heir. Ram Lal was a subject of the Maharaj a of Jaipur and, on Ram Lal's death, the servants of the Maliaraja took possession of the house on 20th September, 1945. Thereupon, suit No. 552 of 1946 was filed by Prabhu Dayal, the father of the appellant, for possession of the house on 10th July, 1946. The suit was contested on the ground that Ram Lal was a lunatic and the earlier suit No. 354 of 1939 had been instituted against Ram Lal without appointment of a guardidn- od-litem, so that the decree in the &Uit was a nullity. The sale in execution of !hat decree was also, therefore, challenged as void. This defence was accepted by the trial Court and the suit was dismissed on 24th January, 1950. The first appellate Court also upheld that decision. The second appeal came before a learned single Judge of the Allallabad High Court who referred it to a Division Bench as, in his opinion, the case involved an iillportant question of la
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