Comparative hardship must be specifically pleaded and proved to deny specific performance.

The plaintiff sought specific performance of agreements to sell dated 22 March and 5 July 1984, alleging that defendant Nos. 1 and 2 agreed to sell the suit property for Rs. 30,025, received Rs. 18,500 as advance, and delivered possession.

Defendant No. 1 admitted the first agreement but disputed the second; defendant No. 2 denied both agreements and raised limitation.

The Trial Court found that both agreements were proved, that the advance had been paid and possession delivered, and that the plaintiff was ready and willing to perform; it decreed specific performance.

The First Appellate Court affirmed the decree.

In this second appeal, the High Court considered the defendants’ challenge to the exercise of discretion under Section 20 of the Specific Relief Act and their contention that the evidence had not been fully considered.

1. Whether the Courts below erred in failing to consider hardship to the defendants when granting specific performance under Section 20 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963.

2. Whether the Courts below erred in failing to consider the oral and documentary evidence on record.

Section 20 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, as applied in the judgment, treats specific performance as discretionary relief to be granted on sound judicial principles, considering the circumstances and conduct of the parties; a plea of comparative hardship requires an adequate factual foundation in the pleadings and supporting evidence.

Kamal Kumar v. Premlata Joshi, (2019) 3 SCC 704, and Parswanath Saha v. Bandhana Modak (Das), 2024 INSC 1022, were relied on for the requirement that hardship be properly pleaded and proved.

K. Narendra v. Riviera Apartments (P) Ltd., (1999) 5 SCC 77, establishes that inadequacy of consideration or an improvident bargain alone does not constitute unfair advantage or unforeseen hardship.

Nirmala Anand v. Advent Corporation (P) Ltd., (2002) 8 SCC 146, requires consideration of the totality of the circumstances and states that increased property value alone is ordinarily insufficient to refuse specific performance.

Under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, concurrent factual findings do not warrant interference absent a qualifying legal error.

The Court found that defendant No. 2’s denial of the agreements was contradicted by his pleading in his wife’s maintenance proceedings, where he referred to the transaction and the defendants’ agreement to acquire land at Kone Hosur.

The contemporaneous purchase of that land on 5 July 1984, supported by the sale deed, corroborated the plaintiff’s account of the second agreement and the receipt of consideration; the Courts below had therefore considered relevant evidence and their findings were not perverse.

As to hardship, the defendants had neither pleaded comparative hardship nor supplied facts or evidence to establish it, and could not raise that defence for the first time in second appeal.

Their acquisition and subsequent sale of alternate land also weighed against their claim of hardship; the later increase in the suit property’s value did not, by itself, justify refusing enforcement.

It dismissed the second appeal and affirmed the decree for specific performance.