However, the Court found that it could not set aside the auction sale at present for various reasons, including that Section 80 of the Act was repealed in 2020, with effect from 1974.
Moreover, the judge pointed out that a challenge to the auction sale had already been dismissed earlier by the High Court in another round of litigation, although the Court appeared to have not examined the element of fraud.
“Therefore, even if it is considered that the petitioner (Raghu) had played fraud, which must ordinarily result in setting aside the auction sale and re-auctioning the property but having regard to the fact that valuable right has accrued to the Trust, equity could be worked out by saving the auction sale and the sale certificate and at the same time suitably compensating the respondent no.1,” the Court reasoned.
The Court, therefore, refrained from setting aside the auction sale of the land. Rather, it set aside a district court order that had quashed the sale citing the fraud played by Raghu (petitioner, being a trustee of the Ved Vignan Maha Vidya Peeth).
However, the High Court directed the petitioner to pay the original owner of the land ₹25 lakhs per acre of the land in the interest of equity and “in view of the steep increase in the present market value of the auctioned property.”
Source: Barandbench
