JOHN Vs. CHANDY PHILIP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by the plaintiff is against the judgement in O.S.No. 131 of 1979 which is a suit for specific performance of a contract. Dismissing the suit. the Court below found that Ext. A3 which is alleged to evidence a contract for sale of the suit property did not evidence a concluded contract so as to bind the first defendant.

(2.) The case of the plaintiff is that the first defendant who lived in Africa engaged the second defendant to negotiate the sale of his property in Alwaye and enter into a binding contract for sale. Pursuant to such authorisation, the second defendant negotiated with the plaintiff for the sale of the suit property and concluded a contract for sale for a total consideration of Rs. 45,000/- put of which a sum of Rs. 2,000/- was received by him as advance on behalf of the first defendant as evidenced by Ext. A3. The first defendant contended that no authority had been given to the second defendant to enter into a contract on his behalf; no contract was evidenced by Ext. A3; the second defendant was authorised by him only to negotiate as a broker or an estate agent and not to enter into a binding contract for sale; the consideration for which the second defendant is alleged to have entered into the contract for sale was far below the market value of the property; and, the first defendant was not bound by any promise that the second defendant might have made to the plaintiff in regard to the property in question. The court below rejected the plaintiff's contention that Ext. A3, which is in the form of a receipt for Rs. 2,000/- received by the second defendant from the plaintiff, evidenced a concluded contract for the sale of the property. The court found that the second defendant had no authority to enter into a contract on behalf of the first defendant.

(3.) Counsel for the appellant, Shri T.S. Venkiteswara Iyer, submits that apart from Ext. A3, which, according to him, evidences a concluded contract, the facts and circumstances surrounding the document, as evidenced by the letters exchanged between the first and second defendants, and the further fact that the plaintiff was well aware of the contents of these letters, particularly, Exts. B1, B3, A1 and A2, showed that the second defendant was clothed with authority by the first defendant to enter into a binding contract for the sale of the land and that such contract was binding on the first defendant and specifically enforceable against him at the instance of the plaintiff. He relies on the decision of the Supreme Court in Prakash Chandra v. Angadlal, AIR 1979 SC 1241 and the decision of the Madras High Court in Sankaralinga v. Ratnaswami, AIR 1952 Mad 389 where it was stated that when there was a binding contract, such contract, in the absence of special circumstances, ought to be specifically enforced. Counsel further contends that the correspondence between the defendants left no doubt that the second defendant acted as an agent with sufficient powers to negotiate and enter into contract on be half of the first defendant for the sale of the property.