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Giriyappa & Anr. vs Kamalamma & Ors.

Not available · 2024 INSC 1043Decided 20 Dec 2024
Not available
Justice J.B. Pardiwala · Justice R. Mahadevan

Background

The respondents (original plaintiffs) had filed a civil suit in 1988 seeking a declaration of title and recovery of possession over certain agricultural land. The petitioners (original defendants) resisted the suit by claiming that the respondents had earlier agreed, under an unregistered sale agreement dated 25-11-1968, to sell them a small portion of the land (2 guntas out of survey No. 24/9) for Rs. 850, and that they had been in possession ever since, invoking the "part-performance" protection under Section 53-A of the Transfer of Property Act. The Trial Court and the First Appellate Court both ruled in favour of the plaintiffs/respondents, and the Karnataka High Court dismissed the petitioners' Second Appeal, upholding those findings. The petitioners then approached the Supreme Court by way of a Special Leave Petition.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the petitioners had failed to prove that the respondents had actually executed the 1968 sale agreement or put them in possession pursuant to it: a factual finding consistently returned by all three lower fora based on oral and documentary evidence, which the Court found no reason to disturb. The Court reiterated the legal prerequisites for claiming protection under Section 53-A: there must be a written, signed contract for transfer of the property with reasonably certain terms, the transferee must have taken or continued in possession in part-performance of that contract, and the transferee must have performed or been willing to perform their own obligations under it. Since the underlying sale agreement itself was not proved, none of these prerequisites were met, so Section 53-A's protection was unavailable and the Court also noted this exception to the formal-registration requirement must be strictly construed. Finding no error of law in the High Court's judgment, the Supreme Court dismissed the Special Leave Petition (after condoning delay in filing it) and disposed of any pending applications.

Lesson Learnt

A claim of "part-performance" possession under Section 53-A of the Transfer of Property Act only protects a person who can actually prove a genuine written sale agreement and their own readiness to perform it: mere long-standing possession of land, without proof of the underlying contract, will not defeat the true owner's title.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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