Madras HC Rejects Heirs’ Specific-Performance Appeal After Finding Sale Agreement Not Genuine, Yet Orders Defendants To Refund ₹1.12 Lakh With 12% Interest

In brief

The question

1. Whether the First Appellate Court properly applied Sections 101–103 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, particularly in light of the defendants’ admission of their signatures on the agreement.

The court held

The High Court found no basis to interfere with the concurrent findings and dismissed the second appeal.

It also directed

In the corrected order dated 26 October 2026, it directed respondents 2–7/defendants to refund ₹1,12,000 to the appellants/plaintiffs 2–4 and respondent 1/plaintiff 5, with interest at 12% per annum from 28 February 2005 until payment, within 12 weeks of receipt of the judgment copy; no costs were awarded.

01Facts

K.A. Marappan sued for specific performance of an alleged sale agreement dated 28 February 2005, under which the defendants were said to have agreed to sell the suit property for ₹1,30,000, acknowledging ₹1,12,000 as advance and allowing four months to pay the balance.

¶ 3–4

After Marappan’s death, his legal representatives were brought on record.

¶ 3–4

The defendants disputed the agreement, alleging that signatures had been obtained on blank papers in connection with a ₹30,000 loan and later used to fabricate the agreement; they also disputed the plaintiffs’ readiness and willingness and raised a non-joinder objection.

¶ 5–6

The trial court dismissed the suit, and the First Appellate Court affirmed that decision.

¶ 8

The plaintiffs appealed to the High Court under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

p. 2

02Issues

i.1. Whether the First Appellate Court properly applied Sections 101–103 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, particularly in light of the defendants’ admission of their signatures on the agreement.

¶ 10(i)

ii.2. Whether the First Appellate Court was correct to require the plaintiffs to prove the sale agreement despite the defendants’ pleading that their signatures had been obtained on blank papers and used to create it.

¶ 10(ii)

03Law Applied

The Court considered the burden-of-proof principles in Sections 101–103 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872: the party asserting a fact necessary to obtain judgment bears the burden of proving it, and the plaintiffs therefore had to establish the execution and genuineness of the agreement they relied on.

¶ 10(i)–(ii), 12

The Court also applied the principle that a plaintiff seeking specific performance must establish continuous readiness and willingness to perform the plaintiff’s contractual obligations; the judgment cited no specific statutory provision or precedent for this principle.

¶ 14

Provisions in the judgment · 1 · Linked ones open on LawLens

Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 Section 100

04Reasoning

The Court held that the plaintiffs had not proved that Ex.A1 was genuine.

¶ 11–13

Although the dispute concerned signatures appearing on the document, the defendants’ case was that the signatures were obtained on blank sheets and later misused.

¶ 11–13

The Court considered the evidence of P.W.1 and attesting witness P.W.2, including their conflicting accounts concerning the panchayat, and found that the evidence supported the defendants’ account rather than the plaintiffs’ claim of a genuine agreement.

¶ 11–13

It also found no acceptable evidence of readiness and willingness: the plaintiffs had issued no notice seeking execution of the sale deed, and the suit was filed more than three years after the alleged agreement despite the four-month completion period.

¶ 14–15