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Ram Awadh – Appellant
Versus
Achhaibar Dubey – Respondent
Key Points: - The court holds that a plaintiff must aver and prove readiness and willingness to perform to obtain specific performance; failure disqualifies relief. (!) - Any defendant may contend that the plaintiff did not meet the mandatory requirement of Section 16(c); the court must determine compliance and may grant or deny decree accordingly. (!) - The judgment remands the suit to the trial court to decide whether the original plaintiff and their legal representatives had proven readiness and willingness, and to decide the suit thereafter. (!) (!) - The plea that the plaintiff was not ready and willing to perform is not limited to the vendor/defendant and is available to any defendant. (!) - The decision overturns a prior judgment, noting that Jugraj Singh’s case is erroneous and requires remand for factual determination. (!) - The appeal is allowed, and the suit is remanded for expeditious decision within six months. (!)
JUDGMENT
Bharucha, J.-This appeal stands referred to a Bench of three Judges because the two learned Judges who heard it earlier found difficulty in following the judgment of a Bench of two learned Judges in Jugraj Singh & Anr. v. Labh Singh & Ors.1.
2. It is not necessary to go into any great detail insofar as the facts are concerned. The appellants before us are the legal representatives of a subsequent purchaser of certain property. They were defendants to a suit by one Bachna for specific performance of an earlier agreement to sell that property to her. She had not pleaded in her plaint that she was ready willing to perform her part of the agreement, but that plea was later introduced by way of an amendment. The question now is in regard to whether she or her legal representatives were, in fact, at all material times ready and willing to perform their part of that agreement. The first appellate Court declined to permit the present appellants to plead and contend that Bachna and her legal representatives were never prepared to perform their part of the agreement and, for this purpose, it relied upon the judgment of this Court in the case of Jugraj Singh. The High Court, in second
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