Court-Executed Sale Deed Does Not Save Agreement Holder’s Claim; Karnataka HC Rejects Review, Leaves Order To Return 4 Acres 31½ Guntas Intact

The review petitioners, legal representatives of the agreement-holder, sought review of the High Court’s judgment dated 17 January 2025 in RSA Nos. 2462/2006 and 2460/2006.

The underlying dispute concerned a 1973 agreement to sell agricultural land, under which the agreement-holder had paid part of the consideration and entered possession.

The Trial Court decreed specific performance, but the judgment under review set aside the lower courts’ decisions, directed refund of ₹5,000 with interest, ordered the agreement-holder to return possession, and declared the present owners to be the property’s absolute owners.

The petitioners contended, among other things, that a court-executed sale deed had already been registered in the agreement-holder’s favour during execution proceedings; that the owners had not appealed the decision in RA No. 27/2003; that certain appellants in the second appeals had died without their legal representatives being brought on record; and that the agreement-holder was already in possession.

The petitions were brought under Order 47 Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC); however, the judgment does not set out a separate test for review jurisdiction.

Section 144 CPC provides for restitution when a decree or order is varied, reversed, set aside, or modified, and permits the court to restore the parties, so far as possible, to the position they would have occupied absent the decree or order.

The Court considered Gangai Vinayagar Temple v. Meenakshi Ammal, AIR Online 2014 SC 174, on appeals from decrees arising from consolidated proceedings, and Sanjeevama v. G. Krishna, ILR 2004 KAR 2338, on the principle that execution of a decree does not, by itself, make an appeal infructuous or prevent its determination on the merits.

The Court held that execution of the decree and registration of the sale deed did not prevent it from deciding the second appeals; if the decree was reversed, Section 144 CPC provided a means of restitution.

The owners had challenged the decree for specific performance in RA No. 24/2003 and pursued a second appeal after that appeal was dismissed. The Court therefore rejected the argument that their failure to separately appeal the order in RA No. 27/2003 barred the second appeals.

It also found that the deceased appellants’ estates were represented by family members already on the record, and consequently rejected the abatement contention.

Finally, the agreement-holder’s possession had been considered in the second-appeal judgment; reconsidering it in review would amount to re-agitating an issue already decided.

It declined to review the judgment dated 17 January 2025, rejecting the petitioners’ arguments concerning execution of the decree, the unchallenged decision in RA No. 27/2003, abatement, and possession.