The collaboration agreement was found to be unenforceable and inoperative due to the subsequent sale deed, and the plaintiff was not ready and willing to perform his part of the contract.

1. Present suit has been filed by the plaintiff Prem Kumar Bansal seeking specific performance of para 15 of the agreement to sell dated 18.02.2005 in respect of property bearing No. E-27, Kalindi Colony, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the ‘suit property’). The other reliefs are for mandatory and permanent injunction.

2. The case set up by the plaintiff is that on 18.02.2005, the plaintiff and the sole defendant (Ambrish Garg) had entered into an agreement to sell whereby the defendant had agreed to sell the entire ground floor of the aforenoted suit property with a right to construct the basement for which a sale deed was to be executed at a later date. In terms of this agreement, it was agreed that the parties will jointly demolish this property and reconstruction will be raised upon it in a period not exceeding five years. The basement and ground floor would fall to the share of the plaintiff and the first and second floor would fall to the share of the defendant. The garage, drive way, passage and the terrace floor would be common for both the parties. The consideration of the agreement was Rs.27 lacs which was paid by the plaintiff to the defendant on the same date.

3. On 22.02.2005, in part performance of the aforesaid agreement, the defendant executed the sale deed in favour of the plaintiff qua the aforenoted property. It was reiterated that a sum of Rs.27 lacs had been received by the defendant from the plaintiff and the plaintiff had become the owner of the ground floor; he had a right to realize the rent from the ground floor which at that point of time was under tenancy. The plaintiff got the suit property vacated. The property was also mutated in his name on 22.08.2007. The mutation documents specify that the plaintiff is the owner of the ground floor with 50% terrace rights.

4. Further averments in the plaint show that the period of five years as stipulated in the agreement dated 18.02.2005 expired on 17.02.2010. The defendant had not come forward to reconstruct the property in terms of the agreement inspite of repeated calls and demands made by the plaintiff. The defendant was evading this issue. Statutory notice was also sent to the defendant on 20.05.2010 but to no avail. The suit was filed seeking the relief of specific performance qua para 15 of the agreement dated 18.02.2005 followed by mandatory and permanent injunction.

5. Written statement was filed disputing the averments contained in the plaint. The primary objection was that clause 15 of the agreement to sell dated 18.02.2005 has been superseded by the registered sale deed dated 22.02.2005. The agreement to sell was no longer in existence. Clause 15 of the agreement to sell does not find mention in the sale deed dated 22.02.2005 and this subsequent document having superseded the agreement dated 18.02.2005 making it inoperative and enforceable; present suit was thus not maintainable. No cause of action had arisen in favour of the plaintiff. The second objection was that the sale deed was dated 22.02.2005; the agreement to sell was dated 18.02.2005; the plaintiff had to express his grievance within three years from the date of the agreement which period expired in 2008. Legal notice dated 20.05.2010 would not enlarge the period of limitation. Suit filed in Mary 2010 was time barred. On merits, the averments in the plaint were denied. It was reiterated that the plaintiff is not entitled to seek any relief of specific performance qua the agreement dated 18.02.2005 which stood superseded by the sale deed dated 22.02.2005. It was denied that the plaintiff is entitled to get the suit property sold and to share the proceeds equally. Submission being that there was no mention in the sale deed dated of clause 15; the property already mutated in the names of the plaintiff as also the defendant. Present suit has been filed only to create pressure upon the defendant and to mentally harass him; the plaintiff being the Chartered Accountant of the d