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Rattan Singh & Ors. v. Nirmal Gill & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2020 INSC 641Decided 16 Nov 2020
Civil Appeal Nos. 3681-3682 of 2020
Justice A.M. Khanwilkar · Justice Dinesh Maheshwari

Background

After Harbans Singh died in 1963, his property devolved on his daughter Joginder Kaur (the original plaintiff) and her four step-brothers. Decades later, in 2001, Joginder Kaur discovered that a General Power of Attorney dated 28.06.1990 and related sale deeds in her name had been used by her step-brothers and step-sister-in-law to transfer her share of the land to themselves and to third-party purchasers. She sued claiming these documents were forged, saying her signatures were obtained on blank papers under the pretext of mutation paperwork.

Decision Breakdown

The trial court and first appellate court had both found the documents genuine and the suit time-barred, relying heavily on the testimony of the scribe who prepared them (who was the plaintiff's own witness) and on the legal presumption that a registered document is validly executed. The High Court, in a second appeal, reversed these concurrent findings, reasoning that it was implausible a woman would appoint another woman as her attorney and pointing to irregularities in the register of deeds. The Supreme Court restored the trial and first appellate court's view, holding that a High Court exercising second-appeal jurisdiction under Section 100 CPC cannot re-appreciate evidence and overturn a possible view taken by courts below merely because another view is also possible; that was "surmise and conjecture," not law. Since the plaintiff could not rebut the presumption attaching to a registered document or discharge her burden of proving fraud, the suit was also held time-barred.

Lesson Learnt

A registered document (a sale deed, power of attorney, etc.) enjoys a strong legal presumption of genuineness: someone who wants to challenge it as forged bears the burden of proving fraud with solid evidence, not just suspicion or family history of trust. Also, High Courts cannot casually overturn consistent factual findings of two lower courts in a second appeal simply because a different conclusion also seems plausible.

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

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