Manik Majumder & Ors. vs Dipak Kumar Saha (Dead) Thr. LRs. & Ors.
Background
The original owner of a plot in Tripura, Braja Mohan Dey, moved to East Pakistan and allegedly signed a Power of Attorney (PoA) there in favour of his tenant, Dhirendra Chandra Saha, so that the tenant could sell the land to himself to recover a Rs. 10,000 loan. Using that PoA, the tenant executed a registered sale deed in his own favour in September 1968 and, weeks later, another deed transferring the land to his wife. In 1985 the tenant and his wife sued the Majumder family, who had been in possession and running a business there for decades, for a declaration of title and recovery of possession. The PoA itself was never produced in court; the trial court and the first appellate court dismissed the suit for that reason, but the Tripura High Court, in second appeal, reversed them by drawing a legal presumption that the registered sale deed (which carried an endorsement referring to the PoA) was valid.
Decision Breakdown
Justice M.R. Shah held that the High Court erred. A PoA executed abroad must be authenticated before a notary, court, magistrate or Indian consular officer under Section 33(1)(c) of the Registration Act; only then does the statutory presumption of validity attach to a document executed under it. Here the PoA was never produced, the original owner never testified, and the plaintiffs' own conduct was suspicious: the tenant sold to his wife "as PoA holder" rather than as owner, and only at the appeal stage invented a new story that the PoA had been handed to the defendants. Justice Shah allowed the appeal and restored the dismissal of the suit. Justice B.V. Nagarathna disagreed: she held that a registered sale deed carries a presumption of correctness that can only be rebutted by strong contrary evidence, that the endorsement on the 1968 deed accepting the tenant as the owner's attorney was a vital piece of evidence the lower courts ignored, that a 1974 court order had already recorded the tenant as purchaser and tax-payer, and that the defendants had never challenged his title until this suit. She would have dismissed the appeal and upheld the High Court's decree. The judgment as published records this difference of opinion without a final resolution between the two views.
Lesson Learnt
If you claim land through someone acting under a Power of Attorney, the PoA document itself is the foundation of your title: keep it safe and be ready to produce it, and if it was signed abroad make sure it was properly authenticated under Section 33(1)(c) of the Registration Act. The judges' disagreement also shows how heavily the outcome of a property dispute can turn on who carries the burden of proving or disproving an old registered document.