Damodhar (D) thr. LRs. vs. Tejrao Bajirao Mhaske and Ors.
Background
The plaintiff bought about 3 acres 20 guntas of agricultural land in a Maharashtra village through a registered 1979 sale deed from two sellers and took possession, but the second seller soon disturbed his possession, leading to a suit for possession based on title. The seller claimed the sale deed was never a real sale but merely security for a Rs. 1,000 loan, and separately argued the transaction was barred under Maharashtra's land Fragmentation Act. The trial court dismissed the suit accepting the "sham document" defence; the first appellate court reversed and decreed possession in the buyer's favour by giving weight to the registered deed; the Bombay High Court's Second Appeal then reversed again and restored dismissal of the suit, holding part of the sale deed void as an illegal land "fragment."
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court found the High Court's reasoning fundamentally flawed on two counts. First, no party had properly raised or pleaded a fragmentation-law challenge to the specific sale deed in question: a mere vague, one-line reference in the written statement could not be treated as a counter-claim under Order VIII Rule 6A CPC, and courts cannot decide issues not properly pleaded and not referred to the fragmentation authority as the law requires (Sections 36A/36B of the Fragmentation Act bar civil courts from deciding such issues directly). Second, on the core dispute, the Court held that a duly registered and admittedly executed sale deed carries a strong presumption of genuineness, and the burden was on the seller, not the buyer, to prove it was merely a sham loan-security document; mere oral assertions could not override the registered deed and its recitals of consideration paid. The Court restored the first appellate court's decree granting the buyer possession, holding the High Court's contrary findings rested on an erroneous assumption of jurisdiction and perverse appreciation of evidence.
Lesson Learnt
Once a sale deed is registered and its execution admitted, the law presumes it reflects a genuine transfer of ownership, and the burden falls squarely on the person disputing it (not the buyer) to prove otherwise; courts also cannot decide land-fragmentation questions not properly pleaded as an issue, since specialised statutes like the Fragmentation Act reserve such determinations for their own competent authorities, not civil courts acting on vague pleadings.