IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
Mr. Justice Govinda Menon and Mr. Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed, JJ.
Kakarla Venkatasubbayya
Versus
Sravanam Venkatarathnamma
L.P.A. No. 106 of 1950.
Decided On : 20 August 1953
This Letters Patent Appeal is against the judgment and decree passed by our learned brother Panchapakesa Ayyar, J., confirming the lower appellate Court’s order directing appellants defendants 1 and 2 to execute a fresh sale deed and get it registered and modifying the lower appellate Court’s decree so far as costs were concerned.
The facts involved in this Letters Patent Appeal have been elaborately set out by our learned brother in his judgment dated the 12th December, 1949. We do not think it is necessary for us to restate them over again in this judgment.
Two main legal contentions have been raised in this appeal by the learned counsel for the appellants. The first contention is that the suit is not maintainable, as section 77 of the Registration Act has not been complied with and that, unless the remedy provided under section 77 of the Registration Act is sought by setting the machinery provided therefor in motion, a suit for specific performance cannot lie. The second contention is that, in second appeal, it was not open to the learned Judge to upset a concurrent finding of fact arrived at by the trial as well as the appellate Courts in regard to the genuineness of the signatures of the first defendant in Ex. P-5, dated 5th February, 1942.
We shall first deal with the latter contention. The respondent entered into an oral agreement with P.W. 3 and the first appellant that they should reconvey the property which had been conveyed in their favour by the respondent and her sister under Ex. P-3, dated 24th July, 1940. In pursuance of this oral agreement Ex. P-5 was executed by P.W. 3 and first appellant in respect of the suit property which was said to be a valuable land. The document was presented for registration some 3½ months after the stamp papers had been purchased. The first appellant failed to appear before the Sub-Registrar despite a notice calling upon him to appear and admit execution. P.W. 3 alone admitted execution. The Sub-Registrar registered the document so far as P.W. 3 was concerned. The respondent appealed to the District Registrar, West Godavari, against the order of refusal by the Sub-Registrar to register the document as against the first appellant. The District Registrar, for elaborate reasons given by him in his order, dated the 5th September, 1942, declined to register the document so far as the first appellant was concerned. Thereupon the respondent filed a suit for specific performance of the oral agreement to reconvey, dated 24th July, 1940, being O.S. No. 309 of 1942, out of which this Letters Patent Appeal has arisen, against the two appellants, the first appellant being the person who refused to register the document and the second appellant being the person in whose favour the first appellant had executed another document during the pendency of the enquiry before the Registrar and the Sub-Registrar. The respondent also prayed for a permanent injunction restraining the appellants from interfering with her enjoyment of the suit lands, as according to her, she had been in enjoyment of the same from 24th July, 1940, despite the sale deed, Ex. D-3, written in favour of the second appellant by the first appellant. The learned District Munsiff of Gudivada who tried the suit dismissed it holding that the alleged oral contract of sale was absolutely false, that Ex. P-5 was an entirely suspicious document, that its genuineness had not been proved and that, as the document was incomplete the respondent could not get any rights thereunder. The learned District Munsiff also held that as the document Ex. P-5 on which the suit was laid was an incohate and suspicious document and it had not been registered, the remedy of the respondent ought to have been to file a suit under section 77 of the Registration Act to direct the registration of the document and therefore held that as the document was not subject to scientific examination and as the appellants denied the contract, the suit for
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