Enforceability of contract for sale of property by the guardian.

Defendants 1 and 3, a Hindu minor and his mother, are the appellants in this second appeal, the 2nd defendant, an infant brother of the 1st defendant having died pendente lite. The plaintiff, a Hindu widow, sued for specific performance of a contract for sale of 3 acres, 7 cents of dry land entered into between her and the defendants and embodied in a compromise Exhibit P-3, dated 19th January, 1944, and filed in S.C.S. No. 65 of 1943. The land belonged to the plaintiff’s deceased husband who sold it to her father on 9th January, 1940. In S.C.S. No. 65 of 1943 the present defendants 1 and 2, the grandsons and legal representatives of the vendee represented by their mother, the present 3rd defendant, as their next friend sued the present plaintiff for rent, alleging an oral lease under which the plaintiff’s deceased husband had been let into possession of the land. In defence to that suit the plaintiff denied the tenancy and stated that she was in possession under an agreement for reconveyance of the land entered into between the parties to the original sale dated 9th January, 1940. The dispute between the parties was settled by a compromise, Exhibit P-3, arrived at as the result of mediation. Exhibit P-3, dated 19th January, 1944, provided inter alia (1) that the plaintiff should pay Rs. 2,700 to the defendants within two months, with interest at 6 per cent, of which Rs. 700 was to be taken in adjustment of the claim in S. C. S. No. 65 of 1943 and Rs. 2,000 as the price of the suit land; (2) that on receipt of Rs. 2,000 from the plaintiff the 3rd defendant as guardian of her minor sons defendants 1 and 2 should convey the land to the plaintiff; (3) that time was to be of the essence of the agreement; and (4) that on default of payment plaintiff should surrender possession of the land to the defendants. The Small Cause Court granted leave to the 3rd defendant to compromise the suit on behalf of the minor defendants 1 and 2 on the above terms which, in its opinion, were beneficial to the minors. A decree was also passed in S.C.S. No. 65 of 1947, on the compromise so far as it related to that suit.

The amount of Rs. 700 with interest was paid in time and satisfaction of the small cause decree was recorded. Plaintiff’s case was that she sent the sum of Rs. 2,000 with interest at 6 per cent, per annum to the 3rd defendant on 15th March, 1944, and wanted a conveyance to be executed in her favour, but the 3rd defendant declined to do so. The plaintiff deposited in Court Rs. 2,000 with interest at 6 per cent, on 18th March, 1944, and filed this suit for specific performance which has been decreed by the Courts below.

Mr. T.R. Srinivasan, the learned advocate for the appellant, argued that an agreement for sale of the property of a Hindu minor entered into on his behalf by his guardian, even assuming the agreement to be beneficial to the minor, was not capable of being specifically enforced against him for want of mutuality. He relied upon the decisions of this Court in Narayana Rao v. Venkatasubba Rao1, Ramakrishna Reddiar v. Chidambara Swamigal2, Venkatachalam Pillai v. Sethurama Rao3and Singara Mudali v. Ibrahim Baig Saheb4which purported to follow the well-known decision of the Privy Council in Mir Sarwarjan v. Fakhruddin Mahomed5. The result of these and the other decisions is stated in Mayne’s Hindu Law (11th Edition), paragraph 236, as follows:

“It is not within the competence of a manager of a minor’s estate or of a guardian of a minor to bind the minor or the minor’s estate by a contract for the purchase or for the sale of immoveable property; and as the minor is not bound by the contract, there is no mutuality and the minor cannot obtain specific performance of contract. Nor is he liable to return a sum of money paid to his guardian as earnest money in respect of a contract of sale of immoveable property since the amount can only be treated as having been paid as security for the performance of a contract which in law is