Ameer Minhaj v. Dierdre Elizabeth (Wright) Issar & Ors.
Background
The appellant sued for specific performance of a 2003 agreement to sell land in Tamil Nadu, relying on an unregistered agreement to sell, an unregistered power of attorney, and a related unregistered sale agreement, after the seller's heirs challenged their admissibility as evidence. The trial court ruled all three documents could be marked and exhibited as evidence, leaving questions of their genuineness and validity for later. The High Court, on revision, reversed this and held the documents inadmissible, prompting the present appeal.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that under Section 17(1A) read with Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908, an unregistered document affecting immovable property can still be admitted as evidence of the underlying contract in a specific-performance suit, even though it cannot be used to claim protection of possession under Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act. It found the High Court wrongly went beyond the limited question of admissibility by interpreting the power of attorney's substance instead of leaving that, along with genuineness and stamp-duty issues, for trial on evidence. It restored the trial court's order allowing all three documents to be exhibited, directed the trial court to independently decide all other validity/genuineness issues, and asked that the long-pending 2010 suit be disposed of within six months.
Lesson Learnt
An unregistered document required to be registered is not automatically useless in a specific-performance lawsuit: it can still be admitted as proof of the underlying agreement to sell, even though it cannot independently protect possession of the property; the deeper question of whether the document is genuine is decided later, at trial, not at the admissibility stage.