Smt. Naresh Kumari & Ors. vs Smt. Chameli & Ors.
Background
In 1953, in erstwhile Punjab (now Haryana), a landowner orally gifted about 38 Bighas 8 Biswas of land to three brothers in return for lifelong services, with a condition recorded in the mutation entry that the land would revert to the donor's heirs if the donees stopped rendering services. Forty-five years later, in 1998, the donor's heirs (the plaintiffs) sued for possession, claiming the donees' descendants had stopped performing the services and that the land should revert. The trial court and first appellate court decreed in the plaintiffs' favour, but the Punjab & Haryana High Court reversed this on second appeal, chiefly on limitation grounds.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court dismissed the plaintiffs' appeal and upheld the High Court's decision. It held that the plaintiffs had failed to lead any real evidence about what the "services" were or when exactly they stopped, while the donees had remained in peaceful, uninterrupted possession for over 45 years. The Court further held that even accepting the plaintiffs' own reading of the gift condition, a perpetual, unremunerated obligation to serve the donor's descendants forever would amount to forced labour ("begar"), which is unconstitutional under Articles 14, 21 and 23, so the only sensible reading of the gift was that "services" meant past services already rendered to the original donor, not an unending obligation. Applying general equitable principles akin to Sections 122, 126 and 127 of the Transfer of Property Act (not itself in force in Punjab in 1953), the Court found the gift was in substance an absolute, completed transfer.
Lesson Learnt
A gift of property conditioned on the recipient (and their descendants) providing free services forever is legally suspect and courts will strain to read such conditions narrowly; long, peaceful possession over decades also makes it very hard to unwind an old land transfer through a belated lawsuit.