Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
M.R. Shah and B.V. Nagarathna

JUDGMENT

M.R. Shah, J.

1. Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned judgment and order dated 18.09.2019 passed by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Amaravati in Writ Appeal Nos. 790 and 1069 of 2018 by which the High Court has allowed the said writ appeals and has directed the authorities concerned to conduct a re-auction of the entire properties by fixing the upset price higher than what has been fixed earlier, the auction purchaser, who purchased the property in question in the year 1998, has preferred the present appeals.

2. The facts leading to the present appeals and the chronological dates and events are as under:

2.1 That a proposal was published by the office of Commissioner, Endowments Department to auction the land in question belonging to Sri Markendaya and Omkareswara Swamy Devasthanam, Eluru, which was published in the newspaper on 10.03.1997. Notification to sell the subject land was published in the Andhra Pradesh Gazette on 22.05.1997. Nobody raised any objection against the said proposal. That the probable expected price of the land was fixed at Rs. 4,00,000/- per acre and the total extent of land was about 1.81 acre. That thereafter the Commissioner of Endowments Department granted permission to sell the land in question on 13.11.1997. The Executive Officer of the Temple Trust issued tender/public notice to sell the land in question by way of an open auction in the presence of the Deputy Commissioner, Endowments on 22.05.1998. As per the notice, the date and time of the open auction was 24.06.1998 at 11.00 AM and the interested participants had to deposit Rs. 20,000/- as EMD. Forty-five persons participated including the Appellant herein - K. Kumara Gupta. At this stage, it is required to be noted that Shri L. Kantha Rao, original writ Petitioner did not participate in the auction and nor did he deposit the EMD of Rs. 20,000/-.

2.2 Thereafter the auction took place on 24.06.1998 in which 45 people participated. The Appellant herein was declared as the highest bidder quoting price of Rs. 5,55,000/- per acre against the expected price of Rs. 4,00,000/-. However, thereafter, the highest offer of the Appellant was Rs. 13,01,000/- per acre as per the bid submitted by the Appellant herein. Thus, the Appellant became the highest bidder fixing the price at Rs. 13,01,000/- per acre. The Appellant deposited Rs. 7,85,000/- being 1/3rd of the bid amount immediately as per the tender conditions. It appears that thereafter the first round of litigation started at the instance of one Shri Jagat Kumar, who as such did not participate in the auction which was held on 24.06.1998. He made a representation on 20.07.1998 that the subject land has a potential of getting more money. Though, initially he had shown his readiness and willingness to pay the higher price but did not deposit the money. On the contrary, he expressed his willingness to buy only 1200 square yards but not the entire land put to auction. On the representation........