Bharati Bhattacharjee vs. Quazi Md. Maksuduzzaman & Ors.
Background
Two sets of home-buyers had each entered agreements to buy a flat from the appellant (a seller), paid a substantial part of the price, but the appellant did not execute and register the sale deed despite repeated requests and a formal notice. The buyers filed consumer complaints; the District Forum ruled for them, the State Commission reversed in the seller's favour (partly persuaded by the seller's claim that there were actually two separate, higher-value agreements per flat), but the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission overturned the State Commission and restored the District Forum's order in the buyers' favour, with 10% annual interest awarded to the seller on the balance due. The seller appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the complaints were time-barred, that she had a genuine dispute about two agreements per transaction, and that the buyers hadn't proven their own readiness to pay.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court found the seller's claim of "two agreements" per flat unconvincing, in one case no second agreement was even produced, and in the other the two documents were identical in date and content (one merely a clean retype of the other with corrections), so there was really only one agreement each. On limitation, the Court held the consumer complaints were filed well within time because the cause of action arose only after the seller failed to act despite a formal notice served in November 2012, not from the date of the original agreements. On the readiness-to-pay argument, the Court noted the buyers had already paid the bulk of the price (including bank loans they were still repaying) and it was the seller's own failure to execute the sale deed that held matters up, so no fault could be found with the buyers. The appeals were dismissed with costs of Rs. 50,000 each against the seller for the unnecessary and prolonged litigation.
Lesson Learnt
A seller who has already accepted most of the purchase price cannot escape the obligation to complete a property sale by inventing disputes about the paperwork years later, and the clock for a consumer complaint over such a failure starts running only from when the seller is formally put on notice and still refuses to act, not from the date of the original agreement.