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Raman (Dead) by LRs vs. R. Natarajan

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 954Decided 13 Sept 2022
Civil Appeal No. 6554 of 2022
Indira Banerjee · V. Ramasubramanian

Background

The respondent sued for specific performance of a 1993 agreement to buy land, claiming he had paid the full price through several instalments endorsed on the agreement. The trial court decreed the suit in his favour, but the first appellate court reversed it, finding the endorsements unproved and the suit filed too late. The Madras High Court, in a second appeal, reinstated the decree for specific performance. The seller's legal heirs then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's decree. It found that the High Court's second appeal had gone well beyond the one narrow legal question it had itself framed at admission (about proof of the endorsements), and wrongly decided a separate limitation question without proper legal basis. More importantly, the sale agreement itself was conditional: the seller could only complete the sale after first buying a right of way from his sister-in-law for access to the land, but she was never a party to the suit, and a court cannot force a stranger to a contract to cooperate with it. Since that condition could not be judicially enforced, specific performance of the sale was not possible. The Court instead ordered the seller's heirs to refund the Rs. 1,44,400 the buyer had already paid, with 9% interest.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not order specific performance of a contract that depends on a third person, who was never a party to that contract, cooperating with it; and an appellate court cannot decide questions beyond the specific legal issue it framed for a second appeal.

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

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