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Smt. Shally Gupta & Anr. vs. Smt. Stuti Agarwal

Regular First Appeal · 2026:DHC:7581Decided 7 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
RFA 925/2026CNR: DLHC010408652026
Justice Neena Bansal Krishna

Background

The appellants sold their entire second floor of a Delhi property to the respondent by a registered sale deed in 2019 for about ₹48.5 lakh, and then stayed on as occupants after promising to vacate within a month, which they never did. When sued for possession, they claimed the sale deed was actually just security for a much larger ₹1.65 crore loan from the buyer's family, under a separate "Mutual Agreement," and that ownership was meant to revert to them once the loan was repaid.

Decision Breakdown

The Trial Court had already decreed possession in the buyer's favour, and the High Court upheld this, noting the sellers themselves admitted in cross-examination that they knew they were signing a genuine sale deed, received the money, and were under no pressure, while the buyer had since paid the property tax and transferred utility connections into her own name. Crucially, even the sellers' own "Mutual Agreement" required them to fully repay the alleged loan by a fixed 2021 deadline to get the property back, which admittedly never happened, so their own document defeated their claim to stay on, and the appeal was dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

If you sign a registered sale deed and later claim it was only meant as loan security, your own back-up agreement's conditions (like a repayment deadline) will be strictly enforced against you, failing to meet those conditions can mean losing any claim to get the property back.

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