Akhil Bhartvarshiya Marwari Agarwal Jatiya Kosh & Ors. v. Brijlal Tibrewal & Ors.
Background
A charitable trust that owned a large plot of land in Malad, Mumbai, built one residential building (A-1) on part of it and sold flats to purchasers decades ago. The flat purchasers later sued the trust, seeking a formal conveyance of land in their favour, but asked for far more land (about 2700 sq. meters) than the building they actually occupied was built on. The Bombay High Court, and separately a Cooperative Societies Registrar, directed the trust to convey a larger area (2700 and 2593.70 sq. meters respectively) than the footprint of the purchasers' own building. The trust appealed to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that flat purchasers (or their housing society) are entitled to a conveyance only of the land corresponding to the built-up area of the specific building they actually purchased flats in, here, 1009.70 sq. meters, not the larger plot area the Trust owned or any area beyond what the purchasers themselves had pleaded in their original suit. It also held that the High Court had exceeded its jurisdiction by granting the purchasers more land than the trial court's decree, since there was no cross-appeal or cross-objection by the purchasers seeking that enlargement. Both the High Court's orders and the Registrar's deemed-conveyance order were quashed, and the deemed conveyance was reduced/modified to cover only the 1009.70 sq. meters built-up area of the purchasers' building.
Lesson Learnt
When seeking a "deemed conveyance" of land, flat purchasers/housing societies are legally entitled only to land proportionate to the built-up area of their own building, not the developer's entire landholding, and courts cannot award a party more relief than it originally pleaded unless the other side specifically appealed for it.