The court emphasized the importance of registration of lease documents and the applicability of the limitation period for specific performance of contracts.

Hallifax—The land in dispute is sir land belonging to the plaintiffs. On the 29th January 1922 they executed a document agreeing to lease it in perpetuity to the defendant for a premium of Rs. 647 on an annual rent of Rs. 12 and they put him in possession. This document undoubtedly required registration, according to the principles stated in Sonu v. Bhadria,1923 AIR(Nag) 171, and as it was never registered it cannot now be used to prove the lease or the agreement to lease, of which also all other evidence is excluded by Section 92, Evidence Act, so that the defendant has to be treated as a tenant from year to year.

2. The fact that there was no registered document conferring the lease was not discovered till 1923, and in a suit filed on the 7th September of that year the plaintiffs claimed a decree for ejectment on the false allegation that the lease was for eight years and the defendant was holding over. The suit was dismissed on the ground that the defendant had not been given any notice to quit. Thereafter the plaintiffs gave him formal notice and filed the present suit for ejectment on the 30th April 1925.

3. In the lower appellate Court it has been found that the plaintiffs are entitled to' resume possession of the land, as the defendant must be treated as a tenant from year to year and he has now had ample notice to quit, but that the plaintiffs must pay him back the Rs. 647 he admittedly paid them for the perpetual lease they agreed to give him but never did fully give him. Both parties have appealed against this decree, and the defendant's appeal (S.A. No. 94 of 1926) will be considered in this judgment.

4. On the facts that have so far been taken into consideration in the case the decision of the lower appellate Court is undoubtedly correct. In deciding that the plaintiffs must pay Rs. 647 to the defendant before taking possession, the learned Addl. District Judge has gone entirely on general principles of equity. That is not necessary when there is a statute governing the matter, and the statute in this case is the Contract Act, of which Section 65 leads to the same result, both in regard to the liability to refund and the amount to be refunded.

5. But a fact prominently on the record has so far been left out of sight, which makes the primary decision in the case, that of the plaintiffs' right to resume possession, wrong. That is, the fact that the unregistered document contains a very distinct agreement to execute another document later. The words, which are near the beginning of the document, are these: Nambar tafsil zel ko kasht ke liye dekar yah patta damami likh dete hain wo yah karar karte hain ke zamin mazkur-i-bala ki ijazat Sarkar se mangakar wo us men maurusi hakk dekar sani patta damami tahrir kar devenge.

6. It was a mistake to suppose in the year 1911 that a perpetual lease of sir land required the permission of a revenue officer, but the parties were undoubtedly under that mistake, and the intention to execute another document later is probably the reason of the failure to register this one. Anyhow there is the agreement to execute a perpetual lease later, and a document containing such an agreement does not require registration. That such a document contains also covenants which cannot be proved without the document having been duly registered does not prevent it being used for proof of this agreement; an unregistered mortgage-bond can be, and not infrequently is, used in proof of the personal covenant to pay, The matter is discussed shortly in Jiwandas v. Mt. Janki, 1922 AIR(Nag) 98.

7. Now, whatever may be the true meaning and limitations of the ''doctrine of part performance'' which has been mentioned in argument here, it is admitted that a person in possession of the property of another is entitled to retain that possession if he can show that he could successfully maintain a suit against that person for specific performance of a contract that would give him that title; it is assumed that the sui