Third-party possession protects school property from tax recovery sale unless ownership and attachability by the defaulter are established.

Immovable property in the possession of a third party under a prima facie claim of right cannot be sold in tax recovery proceedings for another person's arrears unless the Department establishes that the property belongs to the defaulter and is attachable in law. Here, the property was reserved for a school, the society had open and continuous possession since 1972, and official records supported its occupation, while the Department produced no reliable material showing continued ownership by the defaulter. The High Court held that the Tax Recovery Officer could not validly proceed against the school property, and the recovery action and proposed auction were quashed.

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Issues: Whether the Tax Recovery Officer could proceed with auction of the property in the petitioner-society's possession for recovery of the tax arrears of the erstwhile owner, and whether the impugned recovery proceedings were without jurisdiction.

Analysis: The property was reserved in the sanctioned layout for a school, the petitioner-society had been in open and continuous possession since 1972, and the school had been functioning there with official sanctions and municipal records standing in its name. The Department failed to produce any reliable document showing that the defaulter continued to own the property or that the property was lawfully liable to attachment for his dues. In recovery proceedings, the Tax Recovery Officer must examine whether the property is in the assessee's possession in his own right or whether it belongs to a third party; such proceedings are not meant to decide intricate questions of title, and property shown to be in a third party's possession under some claim of right cannot be retained under attachment.

Conclusion: The auction proceedings could not validly be taken against the petitioner-society's property and were liable to be quashed.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition succeeded and the impugned recovery action was set aside, with consequential restraint against sale of the school property.

Ratio Decidendi: Immovable property in the possession of a third party under a prima facie claim of right cannot be sold in tax recovery proceedings for the dues of another person unless the Department establishes that the property belongs to the defaulter and is attachable in law.

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