A party cannot benefit from their own wrongdoing in an unenforceable contract, allowing for recovery of earnest money.

JUDGMENT :

NIDHI GUPTA, J.

Present second appeal has been filed by the defendants against the concurrent judgments and decrees of the learned Courts below; whereby the suit for recovery of Rs.18 lacs alongwith interest @ 12% p.a. has been decreed by both the Courts below holding the plaintiff entitled to recover amount of Rs. 18 lacs from defendants alongwith interest @ 6% p.a.

2. It is inter alia submitted by learned counsel for the appellants that the respondent had failed to deposit the Court fee as required to be paid on the total sale consideration value of the Agreement to Sell. As such, suit of the plaintiff could not have been agreed. Moreover, plaintiff had never gone to the office of Registrar on the target date; whereas defendants were always ready and willing to get the Sale Deed registered and even had gone to the Registrar to get the Sale Deed executed. Respondent has also failed to prove any fraud as alleged. It is accordingly prayed that the suit of the respondent could not have been decreed.

3. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondent appearing on caveat counters submissions made on behalf of the appellants and submits that the impugned judgments and decrees suffer from no error; and that the present Second Appeal is a misuse of the due process of law and, therefore, deserves to be dismissed.

4. No other argument is raised on behalf of the parties. I have heard learned counsel and perused the case file in great detail. I find no merit in the submissions made on behalf of the defendants.

5. Brief facts of the case are that the parties had entered into an Agreement to Sell dated 04.04.2011 in respect of the property in question, as per which, target date for execution of Sale Deed was set for 30.08.2011. It was the case of the plaintiff that at the time of execution of Agreement to Sale, the defendants had committed fraud by incorrectly making known to the plaintiff that the property in question is a built up kothi; that the husband of defendant No.1 has already expired and therefore, she is the legal heir of her husband; and that before the date of execution of Sale Deed, she would get the mutation sanctioned regarding the share of her husband. The defendants had also issued a notice dated 16.03.2012 to the plaintiff to get the Sale Deed executed from the defendants within 7 days. However, even in the said notice, it has been wrongly mentioned that defendant No.1 is the absolute owner of the suit property in the share of her husband Vinod Kumar; whereas the defendant No.1 was not absolute owner of the property in question. It was pleaded by the plaintiff that as the defendants had received Rs.18 lacs as earnest money, the same be refunded to him.

6. Upon appraisal of oral and documentary evidence led by the parties, the learned Courts below have returned a positive finding that on the target date of 30.08.2011, mutation was not sanctioned in favour of defendant No.1. It has also been found that the mutation was sanctioned 2 years after the target date; and the defendants have already sold the suit property to a third party. The relevant findings of the learned first Appellate Court as contained in para 15 of the impugned judgment dated 09.12.2024 passed by the learned District Judge, Rupnagar are as under: -

“15. Since, agreement to sell Ex.P1 is not in dispute and receipt of earnest money of Rs. 18,50,000/- by the defendants from the plaintiff is also not disputed, so the only point which was to be determined was that on failure of which of the party, the agreement to sell Ex.P1 could not be executed on or before 30.08.2011 or whether the suit for recovery is maintainable. Undisputedly, Vinod Kumar was one of the co- sharer in the suit property, which was agreed to be sold vide Ex.P1. One of the recital of agreement Ex.P1 is that Vinod Kumar son of Gian Chand had died and Saroj Rani is hi