SAMPAT RAM Vs. BABOO LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ONE Abdul Majid was the owner of certain properties described in the plaint. On 25-6-1942, he entered into an agreement to sell these properties to defendant 2, Lala Sampat Ram alias champa Ram and his adopted son, Lala Ram Gopal, defendant 3. On 17-7-1942 Abdul Majid entered into another agreement with the plaintiff Babu Lal to sell the same properties to him for rs. 37,000/ -. Though in the first agreement the price stipulated is Rs. 36,000/-, there is really not much difference between the sale prices fixed under the two agreements as in the agreement dated 25-6-1942, the vendees agreed to incur the entire expenses of execution, completion and registration of the sale-deed, while under the document dated 17-7-1942, the entire costs of execution, completion and registration of the document and brokerage, etc. , had to be paid by the vendor and by way of stamp duty alone, on the sale-deed, roughly about Rs. 542/8/-had to be paid. On 25-9-1942, Abdul Majid executed a sale-deed in favour of Sampat Ram and Ram Gopal and had it registered on the 26th of September. On 26-9-1942, the plaintiff filed the suit for specific performance on the agreement in his favour, dated 17-7-1942.

(2.) THE suit was decreed by the trial Court. Two appeals were filed in this Court. First Appeal No. 203 of 1944 was filed by Sampat Ram and Ram Gopal, while First Appeal No. 393 of 1944 was filed by Abdul Majid. The appeal filed by Abdul Majid was dismissed for want of prosecution.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the appellants, Sampat Ram and Ram Gopal, has urged that the plaintiff cannot claim specific performance of the contract as the agreement in his favour was of a later date, namely, 17-7-1942, and that the appellants had no knowledge of that agreement.