The main legal point established in the judgment is the admissibility of an agreement document under the Registration Act, 1908 for the purpose of establishing payment and the contract for sale.

The suit for specific performance of an agreement for sale of a small strip of land described in the plaint schedule as having an extent of 2 cents but actually having an area of 2- cents was decreed by the lower courts and the defendant has come up in appeal. The suit property adjoins a plot of land 12 cents in extent purchased by the respondents' mother Kunhalima from the defendant as per Ext. A-1 sale deed dated 26-5-1962. The lower courts accepting the evidence of P. W. 1, the 3rd plaintiff and P. W. 2, an attestor to Ext. A-2 receipt, found that the defendant on 13-4-1969 agreed with Kunhalima to sell this strip of land to the latter for Rs. 350/-, that Kunhalima paid Rs. 300/- to the defendant, and that the defendant passed Ext. A-2 receipt therefore.

2. P. W. 1 swears to these facts and P. W. 2, to the payment of Rs. 300/- and the passing of Ext. A-2 receipt. The lower courts believed them, and nothing has been brought to my notice which would go to show that these witnesses are not worthy of credence. Ext. C-1 Commission report and Ext. C-2 plan show that a substantial portion of plaintiffs' latrine abuts into the suit property. According to Ext. C-1 report "it is long since the latrine had been constructed' and the defendant's father 'admitted the plaintiffs' possession and use of the latrine'. This fortifies the plaintiffs' case that pursuant to the agreement their mother (she died before the suit was laid) got possession of the suit property. The defendant as D. W. 1 admits that one half of the latrine stands on the suit property. D. W. 2, her husband also admits this. Though both of them, have deposed that they have complained about it before the municipality, there is no evidence of any such complaint.

3. It is contended on behalf of the appellant that the lower courts were very much influenced by Ext. A-2 receipt, which according to him is a document that requires to be registered and is therefore, inadmissible in evidence. It is pointed out by him that in that document the defendant purports to state that she has sold the 2 cents of land mentioned therein to Kunhalima besides acknowledging receipt of Rs. 300/- out of the price agreed upon and that therefore the same is inadmissible in evidence under S. 49 (c) of the Registration Act, 1908.

4. That in view of the proviso to S. 49, even an unregistered sale deed may be received in evidence of the contract sought to be specifically performed in a suit for specific performance cannot be disputed. The said proviso has been introduced to get over the rule enunciated in J. R. Skinner v. R. H. Skinner (AIR 1929 PC 269) to the effect that an unregistered sale deed cannot be received in evidence in a suit for specific performance to prove the agreement for sale of the property to which it relates. The decisions in Jhaman Mahton v. Amrit Mahton (AIR 1946 Pat 62), Rattan Chand v. Bhagirath Ram (AIR 1963 Punj 182) and Saudan Singh v. Goswami Rasikanand (AIR 1968 All 168) take the view that such an unregistered sale deed itself would be evidence of an antecedent agreement for sale. In the first mentioned case Fazl Ali C. J. said 'that an incomplete sale deed may be regarded as a contract for sale' and in the last mentioned case, the Patna decision was referred to and followed by holding that 'an incomplete deed of sale itself, in a suit for specific performance of a contract to sell, can be treated as a contract for sale'. It was pointed out in the Allahabad decision that an agreement to sell is 'inherent in the very fact of the execution' of the sale deed.

5. In Subramanian Chettiar v. Arunachalam Chettiar (AIR 1943 Mad 761) (FB) the Madras High Court said : (at p. 762)

"The proviso makes it perfectly clear that an unregistered document affecting immovable property may be put in evidence in a suit for specific performance."

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"In such a suit, the production of the document and its proof will be suffi