Law: Contract Act (IX of 1872)

Section: 176

(a) Contract Act (IX of 1872)------   ----S. 176-Notice to pledger before sale of goods pledged, necessary-Agreement between parties to contrary of no effect on pledger's right to notice.   Section 176 of the Contract Act requires that the pledgee before exercising his right to sell the goods pledged with him must give notice to the pledger of the sale. This provision of law is not subject to any contract to the contrary entered into by the parties. Sec tion 176 is not one of those provisions of law, which is subject to the parties' contractual freedom. This being the position, the terms of the agreement arrived at between the parties, will not make any effect on the right of the pawnor to get a notice about the disposal of the goods as contemplated in section 176.   (b) Contract Act (IX of 1872)-------   ----S. 176-Notice to pawnor, before sale of goods pawned-Should give reasonable time and specify a limit by which goods may be redeemed-Intimation of actual date of sale not necessary.   For the recovery of amount advanced to pawnor the pawnee has two courses open to him viz., he may sue for the amount due to him, in which case he must retain the goods pledged with him as a security or he may exercise his right to sell the goods pledged with him. If the pawnee elects to exercise his power of sale under section 176 of the Contract Act, the sale must be made after giving reasonable notice to the pawnor. No hard and fast rule can be laid down in this respect and it will depend on the facts of each case whether the notice given to the pawnor was a reasonable notice within the meaning of section 176 of the Contract Act Under that section, it is not necessary that the notice should contain the actual date of sale and the time. It only requires that the pawnor should be given a reasonable time to redeem the property pledged with the pawnee and the pawnee must inform him that if by such and such a time he will not pay the amount due from him, the property pledged will be sold for the recovery of the amount due.   Kunj Behari Lal v. The Bhargava Commercial Bank, Jubbulpore I L R 40 All. 522 and Sankaranaraya Iyer Saraswathy Amal v.…