The court clarified that under Section 20 of the Specific Relief Act, discretion to deny specific performance must be based on clear evidence of hardship, which was not presented by the defendants.

JUDGMENT :

Sanjay K. Agrawal, J.

1. Appellant/Plaintiff has preferred this first appeal under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure calling in question the legality, validity and correctness of impugned judgment and decree dated 13/08/2019 passed by the 8^th Additional District Judge, District Durg in Civil Suit No. 28-A/2013 whereby plaintiff’s suit for specific performance of contract and permanent injunction has been dismissed, however, the trial Court has granted decree for refund of sale consideration of Rs. 7,00,000/- along with interest of 6% per annum in favour of the plaintiff.

(For the sake of convenience, the parties will hereinafter be referred to as per their status and ranking given in the plaint before the trial Court.)

Facts of the Case

2. Plaintiff filed a civil suit stating inter alia that defendant No. 1 is the son of defendant No. 2 and grandson of defendant No. 3 (who died during the pendency of the suit on 22/11/2013 and four legal heirs of hers were substituted and brought on record) and the suit land bearing Khasra No. 492 area 1.23 hectares situated at Village Patora, Tahsil Patan, District Durg was originally owned by defendants No. 2 and 3, however, defendant No. 1 showed a copy of registered power of attorney executed by defendants No. 2 and 3 in his favour on 18/09/2012 to the plaintiff and entered into an agreement of sale on 27/11/2012 with regard to the suit land for a sale consideration of Rs. 10,30,000/-, out of which, Rs. 7,00,000/- was paid by the plaintiff to defendant No. 2 as advance amount and it was agreed that defendant No. 1 will get the sale deed registered in favour of the plaintiff within three months. Thereafter, defendant No. 1 lodged a report regarding missing original rin pustika and a notice was published by the plaintiff in local newspaper, however, defendants No. 2 and 3 published an objection to the said notice and plaintiff was constrained to issue legal notice on defendants No. 1 to 3 for specific performance of contract and that the plaintiff was ready and willing to perform his part of the contract which was replied by defendants No. 1 to 3 and it appeared that they wanted to evade performance of their part of the contract and also wanted to grab the advance amount. Therefore, plaintiff brought a suit for specific performance of contract dated 27/11/2012 and permanent injunction.

3. Defendant No. 1 filed his written statement opposing the plaint averments stating thereby that plaintiff and his friends had coerced defendant No. 1 to prepare a forged and fraudulent power of attorney on the basis of which the agreement to sale dated 27/11/2012 was entered into and registered. He has further stated that plaintiff has not paid any advance amount to either of the defendants.

4. Defendants No. 2 and 3 filed joint written statement and took a similar stand as defendant No. 1 stating that they did not know anything about the agreement to sale dated 27/11/2012 and even got to know about the forged power of attorney on 13/12/2012 and got it cancelled thereafter and further stated that they have not received any money from the plaintiff in the form of earnest money/sale consideration for the suit land.

5. Learned trial Court framed as many as 8 issues and answered them as stated below :-

6. In sum and substance, the trial Court, though recorded findings and answered issues No. 1, 2 and 3, with respect to execution of agreement dated 27/11/2012 for sale of suit land and payment of advance amount of Rs. 7,00,000/- in favour of the plaintiff, but declined to grant decree for specific performance of