A deed of assignment that merely records the fact of assignment made by the assignor and does not create the assignment itself is not an assignment of actionable claims and is not hit by Section 17 of the Indian Registration Act.

TAPAN KUMAR DUTT, J. :

This Court has heard the learned Advocate for the appellants and has considered the relevant materials on record.

It may be noted here that when the learned Advocate for the appellants was arguing the matter over a number of days, certain learned Advocates for some of the defendants/respondents had appeared but after the learned Advocate for the appellants completed his submissions time was sought for on behalf of some of the respondents to enable their learned Advocates to argue the matter but ultimately no one appeared to argue the matter on behalf of any of the respondents. Thus, this Court was compelled to conclude the hearing of the case after hearing the learned Advocate for the appellants on the merits of the case.

The facts of the case, briefly, are as follows:

The plaintiffs/appellants and the porforma defendant/respondent Smt. Ranju Sarkar filed a suit being title suit No. 50 of 2005 against the defendants/respondents praying, inter alia, for a decree declaring that the compromise decree passed in a certain T.S. No. 90 of 2004 which was fraudulently obtained by the defendants is void and/or not binding on the plaintiffs and the deed executed by the defendant Nos. 1(a) to 6 in favour of the defendant Nos. 9 and 10 is fraudulent and not binding on the plaintiffs and also the deed of cancellation dated 07.08.2009 executed by the original plaintiff No. 5(proforma defendant/respondent in the instant appeal, that is, Smt. Ranju Sarkar) in favour of defendant Nos. 2 to 6 is void and not binding upon the plaintiffs. The plaintiff also prayed for a decree for specific performance of contract dated 15.011.2002 on payment of balance consideration money and a decree for permanent injunction restraining the defendants and their men and agents from interfering with the plaintiffs’ possession in respect of the suit property.

It may be noted here that the original plaintiff No.5 Smt. Ranju Sarkar was transposed to the category of proforma defendant in the said suit.

The case of the plaintiffs was that one Kartik Chandra Shaw, since deceased, was the absolute owner of land measuring 33 decimal, more or less, comprised C.S. Dag No. 17, Khatian No. 44, R.S. Dag No. 17/28, Khatian No. 119 under Mouza – Govindapur being premises No. 104(previously 171/1A) Southern Avenue. The said Kartik Chandra Shaw died in the year 1945 and the defendant No.1, namely, Mangobinda Shaw and his elder brother Narayan Chandra Shaw became the joint owners of 50% share each in the aforesaid land. The plaintiffs’ further case was that the said Narayan Chandra Shaw died leaving behind his widow and four children who are the defendant Nos. 2 to 6 in the said suit and thus, they became 50% owner of the said property. It was alleged that subsequently Income Tax Department made preemptive purchase of the said property under Section 269 UD of Income Tax Act, 1961 and the defendants had filed writ petitions before the High Court, Calcutta against the Chief Commissioner, Income Tax Department challenging the said preemptive purchase and vesting of the said property to the Central Government. Thereafter, the said defendant Nos. 1 to 6 decided to sell the property and had openly declared their intention to sell the land measuring 15 cottahs 10 chittaks, more or less, out of the total land as more than one cottahs has been encroached by the neighboring landholders and Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Such property has been described as the “suit property”. The plaintiffs’ case was that in response to the defendant Nos. 1 to 6’s desire to sell the said property the plaintiffs showed their desire to purchase the said property and accordingly original plaintiff and defendant Nos. 1 to 6 entered into an agreement for sale dated 15.11.2002 on a total consideration price of Rs. 1,20,00,000/-(Rupees one crore twenty Lakhs) out of which Rs. 20,00,000/-( Rupees twenty lakhs) was paid to the said defendants by the plaintiffs as earnest money. The plaintiffs