ALOK KUMAR BASU, J. ( 1 ) ALL the parties including the petitioner, opposite party No. 1 and ICICI bank authority, who were not parties in the proceeding but allowed to participate, are represented by their learned Advocates respectively. ( 2 ) THROUGH this application filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of india by the petitioner Soneko Developers Pvt. Ltd. , a very important question regarding the conduct of public sale through auction has been raised vis-a-vis the power and authority of the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal to exercise its discretion in that regard. ( 3 ) THE petitioner herein participating in the process of an auction sale, being the highest bidder, deposited Rs. 62,00,000/- (Rupees sixty two lakhs) in favour of the offer and in addition to that also accepted the liability of the properties on "as is where is" basis. Unfortunately, the sale could not be confirmed as the petitioner defaulted in depositing the balance amount within the time-schedule for which, ultimately, through the intervention of the Appellate Forum, the sale was confirmed and petitioners deposited the entire amount. ( 4 ) AT the stage, when the confirmation of sale in favour of the petitioner was pending, opposite party No. 1 Himadri Coke and Petro Ltd. approached the debt Recovery Tribunal for accepting its offer which was Rs. 70,00,000/- (Rupees seventy lakhs), admittedly, higher than the petitioner. The Presiding Officer of the Tribunal declined to entertain the offer of the opposite party No. 1, for which, through the intervention of this Court, opposite party No. 1 was given the liberty to reagitate the matter before the Presiding Officer of the Tribunal. The Presiding Officer of the Tribunal rejected the petition of opposite party No. 1 holding inter alia, that it would be sheer injustice to reopen the matter when the petitioner has complied with all the terms and conditions of the sale offer. ( 5 ) OPPOSITE party No. 1 thereafter approached the Appellate Forum of the tribunal and the Appellate Authority/forum on hearing both the parties, accepted the offer of the opposite party No. 1 solely on the ground that for the sale of property in auction in order to discharge the legal obligations towards public body, higher price would be the only criterion and when the opposite party No. 1 offered Rs. 70,00,000/- (Rupees seventy lakhs), the same must be accepted even if the sale of the petitioner may be confirmed. Now, challenging that order of the Appellate Forum dated 17th November, 2003 through present application, the learned Advocate for the petitioner submits that the order of the Appellate Forum cannot be sustained both on the question of legality as well as on the question of propriety. ( 6 ) ON the question of legality, the learned Advocate submits that admittedly, when the sale was confirmed by the Debt Recovery Tribunal and subsequently by the Appellate Forum, no appeal or revision was preferred before this High court and thereby the sale confirmation attained finality. The learned Advocate contends that before the Appellate Forum again the question of sale confirmation was not challenged, but, what before the Appellate Forum was that of a subsequent offer, of course, at a higher price. While considering that application, the Appellate Forum could not ignore the earlier order of confirmation of sale and in view of that matter, while entertaining the application by the opposite party offering a higher price the earlier order cannot be disturbed. The learned advocate in this regard has referred to decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court reported in AIR 1970 SC page 1468 and which was subsequently followed in the decision of this Court reported in 82 Calwn 44 (paragraph 8 ). Thus, the learned Advocate for the petitioner submits that the order in question is not tenable on the face of record and on that ground the same is required to be set aside. ( 7 ) ON the question of propriety, learned Advocate submits that on making a comparative analysis it will appear that the price offered by the petitioner and confirmed by the Tribunal and also by the Appellate Forum is not much less than the price offered by the opposite party No. 1 in the sense that petitioner also took up the responsibility of discharging the liabilities due to the statutory bodies. The learned Advocate contends that it is to be borne in mind that this opposite party No. 1 was a stranger in the entire proceeding till September, 2003, while the sale proclamation was made in the year 2000 and the same was given a final shape in the month of March, 2003 and during this period, opposite party No. 1 was absent from the scene. The learned Advocate submits that opposite party No. 1 appeared at the scene during the period when, for situation beyond control of the petitioner, it could not deposit the sale price and the matter was pending before the Appellate Forum for further order and this would completely indicate that opposite party No. 1 was not a bona fide purchaser rather being guided by business rivalry it has come forward with a higher price and the adjudicating authority should not have joined as a party to that business rivalry. ( 8 ) THE learned Advocate appearing for the opposite party No. 1 has found nothing wrong in the impugned order only, because, the entire exercise was aimed at fetching higher price to serve the purpose of public exchequer. The learned Advocate submits that there is no logic or rhyme in the submission of the learned Advocate for the petitioner that the Appellate Tribunal had no authority to cancel the earlier sale in favour of the petitioner and to accept the highest offer of the opposite party No. 1. The learned Advocate submits that it has been the uniform observation of the Apex Court in the case of LICA (P) Ltd. vs. Official Liquidator, reported in 85 Company Cases 788 and followed thereafter in another case of the same journal page 792 and also in the case of Bengal paper Mills, reported in 1999 (4) SCC 383 and followed in the case of Tirupati woollen Mills Shramik Shangharsha Samity and Anr. vs. Official Liquidator and ors. , reported in AIR 2000 SC page 2346, that even after confirmation of sale, if it appears that the sale offer could be higher by bidding and such higher price would serve the very purpose of sale, the Court or the authority concerned can accept the highest offer even if there is earlier confirmation of sale in favour of other party. The learned Advocate for the opposite party No. 1 contends that admittedly, the offer made by the opposite party No. 1 is on the higher side and so the Appellate Forum had committed no mistake in accepting the same and cancelling the sale once confirmed in favour of the petitioner. The learned Advocate for the opposite party No. 1 contends that admittedly, the offer made by the opposite party No. 1 is on the higher side and so the Appellate Forum had committed no mistake in accepting the same and cancelling the sale once confirmed in favour of the petitioner. ( 9 ) THE learned Advocate for the ICICI Bank has participated in the proceeding by making a suggestion that it will be better for all concerned including the financial institutions if the entire proceeding is remitted back to the Debt Recovery Tribunal with an opportunity to hold fresh bidding so that there may be open auction and higher price can be brought to serve the purpose of the public bodies. ( 10 ) I have considered the submission of the learned Advocates taking part in this proceeding. At the outset, I must record that I do not find any merit in the first contention of the learned Advocate for the petitioner that the Appellate forum acted beyond law by cancelling the sale and accepting the offer of the opposite party No. 1 and this at once led me to the second and most significant aspect whether the order of the Appellate Forum can be supported from the point of propriety. ( 11 ) ALL the decisions cited by Mr. Saha in favour of the opposite party No. 1 in support of the impugned order relates to sales conducted in connection with company cases when a company has gone on liquidation and its assets are put in public auction for sale to meet the dues of the secured and unsecured creditors. ( 12 ) IT goes without saying that while deciding the dues of secured creditors, the interest of the workers attains prime consideration and in all the reported cases one thing is common that there was lack of transparency in conducting the auction whereby parties wanted to reduce the bidding price in order to defraud the workers and other statutory bodies. It is available from the decisions of the Apex Court in all the cases referred to by Mr. It is available from the decisions of the Apex Court in all the cases referred to by Mr. Saha that the Apex Court had prompted to given a guideline that where the hungry workers are to be fed with the sale proceeds, there must be transparency and there must not be any syndicate bidding and if required, once a sale is confirmed and it is proved that there was no openness in the auction sale, that sale can be set aside and fresh bidding could be made. ( 13 ) THE fact of the present case is radically different which will be evident from fact of the case. It is undisputed that bank and other authorities took the pain for three years for getting any tangible offer against the proclamation of sale and from the order of the Presiding Officer of the Debt Recovery Tribunal it is available that a sum of not less than Rs. 30,00,000/- (Rupees thirty lakhs) was spent for publication in five different newspapers and also for maintaining the property by engaging security guards. In that background, the present petitioner came forward with an offer of Rs. 60,00,000/- (Rupees sixty lakhs) which was enhanced to Rs. 62,00,000/- (Rupees sixty-two lakhs) by negotiations and there was no other offerer to take the risk. It is most unfortunate that the petitioners could not secure the entire money for which there was a default and that default was condoned by the Appellate Forum and during that period, the present opposite party No. 1 came with the offer of higher price and the difference was to the tune of Rs. 8,00,000/- (Rupees eight lakhs ). There will be no unreasonable allegation against the opposite party No. 1 if it is recorded that opposite party No. 1 took the default of the petitioner as pretext and out of business rivalry, came with a higher offer though at no point of time, had indicated any interest to purchase the property in dispute though the offer was made in the year 2000. ( 14 ) FROM the order of the Appellate Forum, I find that the Forum was totally guided with the consideration of higher price, but, the forum did not take into account the previous conduct of the present petitioner and also the present conduct of the opposite party and the Presiding Officer of the Debt Recovery tribunal rightly made a distinction between the conduct of the two and rightly titled the balance in favour of the petitioner. ( 15 ) THUS, in view of what has been stated by the learned participating advocates and what I gather from the record placed before me and in view of the ratio of the decision relied on by Mr. Saha on behalf of the opposite party no. 1, I am of clear view that the observation of the Hon'ble Supreme Court regarding conduct of sale in the matter of property of a company in liquidation cannot be applicable in the present case and for that reason mere fetching of higher price cannot be the consideration, on the other hand, justice coupled with equity must be the guiding factor to arrive at a decision. ( 16 ) ACCORDINGLY, I do not agree with the reason shown by the Appellate tribunal in accepting the offer of the opposite party No. 1. At the same time, I gather that the petitioners have already deposited Rs. 8,00,000/- (Rupees eight lakhs) as per order of this Court at the time of admission of this application and I wish that the petitioner must forego this amount also in favour of the sale thereby increasing the sale offer to Rs. 70 lakhs which, for all purposes, would be good gesture and befitting answer to the cut-throat competition. The opposite party No. 1 who also offered another Rs. 10,00,000/- (Rupees ten lakhs) above than initial offer, I decline to accept that Rs, 10,00,000/- (Rupees ten lakhs) only, because, this Court is not conducting auction sale, but, this is a court for dispensation of justice. ( 17 ) THE application is thus allowed without costs. ( 18 ) THE interim order is modified to the effect what has been discussed in the body of this order. ( 19 ) THE learned Receiver is hereby directed to take the amount of Rs. 8,00,000/- (Rupees eight lakhs) as an additional price offered by the petitioner and to get it adjusted accordingly. ( 18 ) THE interim order is modified to the effect what has been discussed in the body of this order. ( 19 ) THE learned Receiver is hereby directed to take the amount of Rs. 8,00,000/- (Rupees eight lakhs) as an additional price offered by the petitioner and to get it adjusted accordingly. The Receiver is also directed to take all steps immediately for completion of the sale process and to hand over physical possession as per terms and conditions of the sale. ( 20 ) THE prayer for stay of this order as made by the opposite party No. 1 is considered and rejected, as I do not think, any serious question of law is involved for approaching the higher Forum. Application allowed.