The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of executed deeds and the entitlement to specific performance of the agreement for reconveyance.

Lord Blanesburgh :-

The question upon this appeal is whether the appellants are entitled, and, if so, on what terms, to have a reconveyance of the properties in suit executed in their favour by the respondents.

The District Court of Akyab by a decree dated the 15th of January, 1920 held that the appellants, the plaintiffs in the suit, were so entitled on the terms prescribed by the decree. The Chief Court of Lower Burma on appeal reversed that decision and dismissed the suit. The plaintiffs appeal.

They are the legal representatives or successors in interest of one Mi Po Ma (who died in March, 1917) and of one Shwe Zan U (who died in October, 1918). Mi Po Ma and Shwe Zan U were the owners of the properties in suits. They each of them died heavily indebted. Amongst their creditors were the Bank of Bengal and the second defendant Maung Tha Nyo. He died while the appeal in the suit to the Chief Court was pending, and his estate is represented before the Board by the respondents 2 (A) to 2 (K). Their Lordships will continue to refer to him and his estate as the second defendant.

On Shwe Zan U's death the Bank and the second defendant took steps to enforce their claims against the estates of their deceased debtors. The Bank obtained a mortgage decree over the properties in suit for upwards of Rs. 88,000; the second defendant obtained before judgment an attachment for an amount, not stated, upon certain of the properties. Obviously some arrangement was necessary if the interests of the appellants in the properties were not to be sacrificed. Two friends of the deceased came forward to avert this misfortune. One of these was Do Aung Gyaw, the husband of the first respondent, and at the time the cashier at Akyab of the Bank of Bengal. The other was U Tha Do Pyu, a retired Superintendent of Land Records.

These two intermediaries first of all set themselves to make terms with the Bank of Bengal, and they succeeded at length in getting the Bank to accept Rs. 45,000 in satisfaction of its entire debt. Later, an arrangement was concluded with the second defendant that he would accept Rs. 10,500 in full satisfaction of his claims.

But the raising of the necessary moneys proved to be a source of difficulty owing to the apparent desire both of the second defendant and of Do Aung Gyaw to acquire or retain some personal interest in the properties.

At the outset Tha Do Pyu took the leading part in the arrangements, and his first proposal was that the second defendant should buy the properties in suit direct from the appellants for a price at least sufficient to discharge both the Bank's adjusted debt and his own. This proposal, however, fell through. It suited neither the appellants, nor Do Aung Gyaw. The next suggestion was that one Mra Tha, a friend of Tha Do Pyu, should buy the properties for Rs. 50,000, on the terms that although conveyed to him they should remain in possession of the appellants, who were to be entitled to buy them back within three years for Rs. 50,000, with a commission of Rs. 3,600 "for profits or kindness," and deeds were actually prepared to carry out that transaction.

At the last moment, however, Mra Tha withdrew from the negotiation, at the instance, it is suggested, of the second defendant, whose desire to have an interest in the properties was not under that proposal realized. The final arrangement was one under which Mra Tha's place, at the instance, as their Lordships cannot doubt, of her husband Do Aung Gyaw, was taken by the first respondent Ma Da Twe. The deeds as originally prepared with Mra Tha's name inserted were utilized, interlineations and alterations being made in them as they now appear in the actual engrossments. In that form they were at length axecuted.

The main question - indeed, the only question - as between the appellants and Ma Da Twe, the first respondent depends upon the true effect of these executed deeds to which she became party, and it will be convenient to refer to them at once, although their Lo