Judgment

JASWANT SINGH, J.:- This appeal by special leave which is directed against the judgment and decree dated January 29, 1968, of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay involves a question of the applicability or otherwise of the doctrine of frustration embodied in Section 56 of the Contract Act which to use the words of Viscount Manugham in Joseph Constantine Steamship Line Limited v. Imperial Smelting Corporation Ltd., (1942 AC 154 at p. 168) "is only a special case of the discharge of contract by an impossibility of performance arising after the contract was made or to use the language of Mukherjea, J. in Satyabrata Ghose v. Mugheeram Bangur & Co., (1954 SCR 310) "is really an aspect or part of the law of discharge of contract by reason of supervening impossibility or illegality of the act agreed to be done and hence comes within the purview of Section 56 of the Indian Contract Act.

2. The facts giving rise to this appeal lie in a short compass and may be briefly stated: the respondents who are the owners of four plots of agricultural land admeasuring 7 acres and 13 gunthas and a bungalow standing thereon situate in village Majwade, near Pokhran Talao Road, Thana, having boug