Seller’s Drugging Claim Fails: Allahabad HC Orders Specific Performance Of Registered Land Agreement

Kalu sought cancellation of a registered agreement to sell his abadi land to Sadanand, alleging that Sadanand’s family obtained his thumb impression while he was ill and under the influence of medicine.

Sadanand denied fraud and sought specific performance, pleading readiness to pay the balance consideration.

The trial court cancelled the agreement and dismissed the specific-performance suit; the first appellate court affirmed both decrees. In the consolidated second appeals, the High Court framed a substantial question concerning whether the courts below had wrongly disbelieved the defendants’ evidence and shifted the burden of proof to them

Under Sections 101 and 102 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, the party who asserts a fact bears the burden of proving it; the burden rests on the party who would fail if neither side adduced evidence.

A registered document is presumed validly executed, and the party challenging it bears the initial burden of rebutting that presumption (Prem Singh v. Birbal; Rattan Singh v. Nirmal Gill).

Where execution is specifically denied, Section 68 requires examination of at least one attesting witness; the second need not also be called.

Sections 16 and 17 of the Contract Act require proof of incapacity, fraud, or a position of dominance and its use to obtain an unfair advantage before the burden shifts; allegations of fraud or undue influence must be pleaded with particulars under Order VI Rule 4 CPC.

Section 16(c) of the Specific Relief Act requires readiness and willingness, assessed from the plaint as a whole; Article 54 of the Limitation Act starts time, where no performance date is fixed, when refusal becomes known.

The Court also applied Section 31 of the Specific Relief Act to cancellation and the then-applicable Section 20 principles governing the discretion to grant specific performance.

The defendants proved execution and registration through the attesting witness, scribe, Sub-Registrar, and the registration endorsement.

Kalu’s evidence of illness, without medical or other corroboration that his understanding was impaired, did not rebut the registered document’s presumption; nor did it establish fraud, undue influence, or incapacity.

The courts below had relied on conjecture about sedative medicine and treated collateral variations in testimony as material, while wrongly requiring Sadanand to prove the negative that Kalu was not incapacitated.

As to specific performance, the plaint sufficiently pleaded readiness and willingness; the agreement fixed no performance date, and the suit was filed soon after Kalu’s refusal.

The notice clause did not cancel the agreement merely because notice was not given, particularly after Kalu had repudiated it.

The agreement and registration endorsement supported payment of the advance, and no ground under the applicable Section 20 justified withholding specific performance.

Both second appeals were allowed; the lower courts’ judgments and decrees were set aside, Kalu’s cancellation suit was dismissed, and Sadanand’s suit was decreed for specific performance.

The appellants were directed to deposit the balance consideration within two months, after which Kalu’s legal representatives were to execute and register the sale deed; the parties were also directed to maintain status quo regarding possession pending execution.