Approving a market-lease auction notice
Two drafts of a public notice for the auction of the tehsil fruit and vegetable market lease are placed before the Tehsildar for approval before publication in a national daily. Draft A reads: 'It is informed to all concerned that the lease of sabzi mandi is comprises of four shops and one open yard and shall be auctioned on 12 April. The intending bidders must deposit 10 per cent earnest money prior to the auction before the bid. The successful bidder's security will be forfeited if he fails to deposit the balance within seven days and his lease shall stand cancelled or else the same may be re-auctioned.' The office clerk prefers Draft B, which is shorter but omits both the reserve price and any statement of the right of an unsuccessful bidder to represent against the auction. Last year an auction of the same market was set aside by the Deputy Commissioner because the notice did not state the reserve price, and a losing bidder obtained a stay that cost the tehsil a full season's lease money. The market yields about PKR 4.2 million a year.
1. Identify four defects in Draft A, classifying each as grammar, redundancy, or legal ambiguity, and give the correction for each.
Read the worked answer
1. 'is comprises of' - grammar. Comprise is a transitive verb and takes no preposition; the correct forms are 'comprises four shops' or 'consists of four shops'. This is the kind of error that gets a notice ridiculed in the press and invites a challenge to the office's care in the whole exercise.
2. 'prior to the auction before the bid' - redundancy and uncertainty. Two different deadlines are compressed into one phrase: is the earnest money due before the bid is submitted, or before the auction begins? Fix one time and place, e.g. 'earnest money shall be deposited by 11:00 a.m. on 12 April, before token issuance'.
3. 'his lease shall stand cancelled or else the same may be re-auctioned' - legal ambiguity. 'Shall' makes cancellation automatic; 'may' makes re-auction discretionary; 'or else' is colloquial and leaves unclear whether forfeiture is in addition to cancellation. Rewrite as two mandatory consequences in separate sentences.
4. Omission of the reserve price and of the unsuccessful bidder's remedy. This is the defect that set aside last year's auction. A notice that conceals the reserve price invites the charge that the auction was not transparent; silence on the representation route leaves the losing bidder with no stated avenue and pushes him to court.
2. Draft the operative notice of not more than 70 words, retaining the reserve price, the earnest money, the payment deadline and a clear forfeiture clause.
Read the worked answer
A workable version:
'NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the lease of the Tehsil Fruit and Vegetable Market (four shops and one open yard) will be auctioned on 12 April at 11:00 a.m. in the Tehsil Office. Reserve price: PKR 4,200,000 per annum. Earnest money of 10 per cent is payable before tokens are issued. The highest bidder shall deposit the balance within seven days, failing which the earnest money shall be forfeited and the lease shall be re-auctioned. Aggrieved bidders may represent to the Deputy Commissioner within seven days.'
Why this shape: it states the thing being leased, the forum and time, the floor, the condition of entry, the consequence of default in mandatory language, and the remedy. The 70-word ceiling is achieved by cutting the ceremonial opening ('It is informed to all concerned') and by attaching each condition to the party it binds. A notice is read by people looking for three things - price, date, and what happens if they lose - so those come first.
3. Why does the difference between 'shall stand cancelled' and 'may be re-auctioned' matter to a losing bidder or a defaulting lessee?
Read the worked answer
The two words allocate risk, and risk is what litigants argue about.
'Shall stand cancelled' admits no discretion: once the seven days pass without payment, the lease is at an end and the office has no power to revive it. That protects the tehsil from the charge of favouritism - it removes the ability to keep a non-paying bidder in place because he is influential - but it also means the office cannot grant even a day's grace without breaching its own notice.
'May be re-auctioned' leaves the decision open. To a defaulting lessee this is an invitation: he will argue that re-auction is discretionary, that the office must consider his explanation, and that a hasty re-auction is arbitrary. To the second-highest bidder it is equally useful: he will argue that the lease should have been offered to him rather than re-auctioned, and that 'may' gave the office a choice it never exercised.
A well-drafted notice removes the argument by making both steps automatic and by saying what happens to the earnest money. Ambiguity in a notice is not a drafting nicety; it is the stay order of the next season.