Judgement Appeal from a judgment and decree of the High Court (July 4 1910) reversing a judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge of Midnapore (March 29, 1909). The question for determination in the appeal was whether the High Court had rightly decided that the first respondent Hari Dasi Debi was entitled to a decree setting aside a sale, under Act XI. of 1859, of a half share in a zamindari. The facts were as follows. The first respondent Hari Dasi Debi was the proprietor of a half share of mahal Gumukpota in respect of which a separate account had been opened in the Collectorate register. There was an arrear in the payment of the kist due on January 19, 1907. Notifications dated February 16, 1907, were issued and published under ss. 6 and 13 of Act XL of 1859 fixing March 26, 1907, as the date of sale of her share in the zamindari " for arrears of revenue and other demands which by law are realizable as arrears of revenue." The arrears due were stated to be " Rs. 547 including Police." On March 13, 1907, a certificate was filed under s. 7 and s. 9, sub-s. 3, of Bengal Act I. of 1895 (the Public Demands Recovery Act), as amended by Bengal Act I. of 1897, for Rs.69 for embankment charges (pulbandi) due under the Bengal Embankment Act (Bengal Act II. of 1882) in respect of the lands in question. On March 25, 1907, the first respondent applied by petition to the Collector praying for exemption from sale of her share in the zamindari upon payment of the revenue in arrear. Upon this petition the Collector, on that day, ordered as follows " May be accepted, if paid to-day." Upon inquiry from the clerk of the arrears collection department her agent was informed that the amount due was Rs.807, and this sum was accordingly deposited by her on March 25 and receipts given. The Rs.807, however, did not include the Rs.69 due for pulbandi under the certificate of March 13, 1907. On March 26, 1907, the non-payment of the Rs.69 was reported to the Collector, who ordered as follows " Rs.69 remains to be paid ; put up for sale." No notifications of the sale were issued under s. 5 of Bengal Act XI. of 1859. On March 26, 1907, the non-payment of the Rs.69 was reported to the Collector, who ordered as follows " Rs.69 remains to be paid ; put up for sale." No notifications of the sale were issued under s. 5 of Bengal Act XI. of 1859. Accordingly on that day the half share in the zamindari was put up for sale and was knocked down at the nominal price of Rs.500, it being valued at Rs.50,000. The purchaser, Nandalal Mullick, sold to the first appellant Dhiraj Chandra Bose. The first respondent took proceedings to set aside the sale, but, on May 24, 1907, the Collector confirmed it and ordered the issue of a certificate of title. This order was confirmed by the Commissioner on July 26, 1907, and a sale certificate was subsequently issued. The first respondent, in January, 1908, instituted the present suit against the purchaser, Nandalal Mullick, and the appellant Dhiraj Chandra Bose, to whom he had sold, claiming to have the sale set aside. By her plaint she claimed, inter alia, that the sale was illegal as the Collector did not act in accordance with the provisions of s. 5 of Bengal Act XL of 1859, and upon the ground that she had been misinformed by the clerk at the Collectorate office as to the amount due. The Subordinate Judge dismissed the suit. He held, inter alia, that there had been no order for exemption, since the condition upon which it would have been granted had not been fulfilled; that the sale took place for the arrears of land revenue and was valid and final, and that consequently no notifications under s. 5 of Act XL of 1859 were necessary; and that the plaintiffs agent had not been misled as to the amount due, but that, if he had, the Court had no power to relieve the plaintiff upon that ground. The High Court (Holmwood and Sharfuddin JJ.), by its judgment delivered on July 4, 1910, allowed the appeal. The High Court (Holmwood and Sharfuddin JJ.), by its judgment delivered on July 4, 1910, allowed the appeal. The judgment of the learned judges, after setting out the facts above stated and finding that there was evidence that the existence of the arrear of Rs.69 might have been purposely withheld from the plaintiff, proceeded in the following terms — " We fully appreciate the importance of the dictum of their Lordships of the Judicial Committee in the case of Gobind Lall Roy v. Ramjanam Misser (( 1893) L. R. 20 Ind. Ap. 165.), that anything which impairs the security of purchases at revenue sales tends to lower the price of the estates put up for sale, and that the purchaser should not be exposed to the danger of having his sale set aside after a year upon new grounds. " But the ground taken in this case is not new. It is the ground that has been apparent on the face of the Collectorate proceedings from the beginning, and was taken in the grounds of appeal to the Commissioner. Having regard to the carelessness apparent in this case, with which any and every statement of a mohurir is accepted by the subordinate revenue officers and passed on to the Collector, and to the immense temptation these mohurirs are under to traffic in revenue sales, we think that the evidence of the bona fides of the mohurirs should be most carefully scrutinized, and when, as in this case, there appears prima facie suspicion of misrepresentation the technical effect of the Collectors orders should be very strictly interpreted in favour of the plaintiff. " There is no direct evidence of an attachment under the ] certificate for Rs.69, but the certificate itself obtained the force of a decree on March 13, 1907, when it was filed, and the order for sale on March 26, which was passed on the same day, is clearly an order for execution of the decree by sale, and operates as an attachment within the meaning of s. 17, for the words of that section are not ordered to be attached but held under attachment by the revenue authorities otherwise than by order of a judicial authority, but the sale is not bad on that ground alone since the attachment, if any, was made after the last day of payment and after the estate had become liable to sale for arrear of Government revenue Bunwari Lal v. Muhabir Proshad Singh. (( 1873) L. R. 1 Ind. Ap. 89.) But the main ground for holding that the sale must be set aside is that it is not for arrears of revenue at all. Sect. 33 says no sale for arrears of revenue shall be annulled by a Court of justice/ it does not pay no sale purporting to be for arrears of revenue shall be set aside. "It is in vain to say that the Collector could have sold the estate for arrears of embankment charges if he had not issued a certificate and had proceeded under g. 5 of the Act. " It is urged that the omission to proceed under s. 5 is a mere irregularity, but their Lordships of the Judicial Committee did not lay this down in Gobind Lall Roys Case (L. R. 20 Ind. Ap. 165.), and the only authority we have been referred to, the case of Deonandan Singh v. Manbodh Singh (( 1904) I. L. R. 32 Calc. 111.), merely says that the non-issue of a notice under s. 5 is an irregularity which does not make a sale a nullity unless the ground has been specified in the appeal to the Commissioner. This case is rather in the plaintiffs favour and in any case no notice under s. 5 was held to be necessary in that case, as the arrears were not other than those of the current year and of the year immediately preceding. This case is rather in the plaintiffs favour and in any case no notice under s. 5 was held to be necessary in that case, as the arrears were not other than those of the current year and of the year immediately preceding. " Now, it is clearly established by the Collectorate ledger exhibited in this Court, by the chalans, and by the Collectors rubokari on May 24, 1907, that this Rs.547 had been fully paid up and receipts granted for it. It is true no formal order of exemption had been passed in respect of it, and, therefore, the estate was still liable to sale for this arrear as advertised, but it is equally clearly established by these same papers that the estate wa3 not sold for those arrears but for the Rs.69 due for pulbandi under the certificate. " Applying the law as we understand it and following the principles laid down by the Judicial Committee in the case of Gobind Lall Roy v. Ramjanam Misser (L. R. 20 Ind. Ap. 165.), we are of opinion that the sale as held on March 26, 1907, was not a sale for arrears of land revenue, and that it was not competent to the Collector to hold such a sale under Act XI. of 1859. " It appears to us that when the Collector has acknowledged payment in full of the arrears of land revenue for which the sale was advertised, and has elected to proceed by certificate procedure against an arrear of a different character, and has already directed a sale under that procedure, he cannot turn round and treat the arrear under the certificate as an arrear of land revenue, without any notice to the parties under s. 5, and proceed to sell the property under the land revenue proclamation on the mere ground that no special exemption order has been passed. The embankment charges ordered to be levied under the Certificate Act are taken out of the purview of Act XL of 1859 unless and until fresh notices are issued under s. 5, and they cannot he treated as arrears of land revenue. The embankment charges ordered to be levied under the Certificate Act are taken out of the purview of Act XL of 1859 unless and until fresh notices are issued under s. 5, and they cannot he treated as arrears of land revenue. The sale, therefore, not being for an arrear of land revenue is liable to be set aside, and the judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge must be discharged with costs." Upon the appeal to the Judicial Committee, the second defendant Nandalal Mullick, the purchaser, who had not appeared to the appeal to the High Court, was joined as a respondent. There was also joined as a second appellant one Hem Chandra Bose. He had obtained a decree against the first respondent (plaintiff) for Rs.18,000 on June 9, 1906, under which a sale of the plaintiff s share in the zamindari had taken place on June 19, 1907. This sale had been confirmed and an appeal to the High Court dismissed. As a preliminary point upon the appeal to the High Court in the present suit it was contended that by reason of this sale the plaintiff had no longer any interest in the property and was not entitled to maintain the suit. The High Court rejected this contention upon the ground that, the revenue sale having taken place on March 26, 1907, the plaintiff had an interest in the mesne profits of the property for the period between the dates of the two sales. Dunne, for the appellants. The petition for exemption from sale was made under s. 18 of Act XL of 1859, which provides that " the Collector shall duly record in a proceeding the reason for granting such exemption." The Collectors order of March 25, 1907, was not therefore an order for exemption, but merely stated the condition upon which an order might be made. That con dition was not fulfilled in that the full amount due was not paid. Under s. 6 of the Act of 1859 the sale properly proceeded as a land revenue sale, and that being so, no notices under s. 5 of the Act were necessary. No attachment took place under the certificate for the pulbandi, and the order of the Collector that the sale was to proceed cannot be regarded as an order under the certificate procedure. No attachment took place under the certificate for the pulbandi, and the order of the Collector that the sale was to proceed cannot be regarded as an order under the certificate procedure. Under s. 33 of the Act of 1859 the order of the Commissioner confirming the sale was final and could not be annulled by a Court of justice. The first respondent had at the date of the suit no interest or title in the property, since it had been sold on June 19, 1907, under the decree of June 9, 1906. She was therefore not entitled to maintain the suit. The respondents did not appear. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by LORD DUNEDIN. This is an appeal heard ex parte, and whenever this is the case it is a matter of considerable anxiety to the Board. But in this appeal that anxiety was certainly relieved by the exceedingly fair and candid way in which it was presented by the learned counsel for the appellants. In the result, upon a full consideration of the circumstances, their Lordships see no reason for interfering with the judgment of the Court below. They will therefore humbly advise His Majesty to dismiss the appeal.