MATHURA DATT Vs. TEG SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a defendant's second appeal from the decision of the Additional Civil Judge, Nainital reversing that of the Munsif, Ranikhet and decreeing the plaintiff-respondents' suit for specific performance of an agreement to sell land. It appears that there was a dispute between the plaintiff-respondents and the defendant-appellants over certain mutation proceedings initiated by the plaintiffs. It is not necessary to give details of this dispute except that it ended in a compromise on 17-9-1952. Under the terms of this compromise, four of the defendant-appellants executed an agreement promising to transfer within six months to the plaintiff-respondents by sale a certain immoveable property. THIS property is the land in dispute and the agreed sale price was Rs. 350/-. The four appellants who signed the agreement of sale deed, purporting to act on their own behalf as well as on behalf of the other defendants, are Ganga Datt (No. 2). Hiraballabh (No. 3), Khali Ram (No. 5) Keshab Datt (No. 7) The sale was not effected within the stipulated period or at any other time, bill on 14-9-1955, five of the defendants made an endorsement on the back of the deed explaining why the agreement had not been implemented and also explaining why there was delay in applying for permission to sell the land (It may be explained at this stage that the land in dispute is "protected land" as defined in Section 2 of the U. P. Regulation of Agricultural Credit Act, 1940 and could not be alienated without the permission of the Assistant Collector concerned) Even after this the defendants did not execute the sale deed and the plaintiff respondents, after giving notice to them, filed this suit for specific performance.

(2.) ALL the defendants resisted the suit and denied any liability under the agreement of 17th of September 1952. It is not necessary to consider all the pleas in defence except the three which have been raised in this appeal. First, they contended that the suit was time-barred: secondly, that the agreement having been made by four members of a joint family of seven, it was unauthorised and ineffective; thirdly, a decree for specific performance could be not passed in respect of protected land as it required the permission of the Assistant Collector and the Court could not compel the defendants to apply for this permission if they did not want to.

(3.) MR. L M. Pant argued that these words contain a bare statement of fact that an agreement was made but no acknowledgment of liability and cited a number of decisions. Consolidated Agencies Ltd. v. Bertram Ltd. 1965 A. C. 470; Pandit Ram Hazari v. Ram Narain AIR 1963 All 422; Meharban Singh v. Panna Lal, AIR 1926 All 76, and Mst. Sham Devi v. Bhagwat Dayal, AIR 1925 All 353. I do not think these decisions help the appellants. Under Section 19 of the Limitation Act the period of limitation is extended if there is an acknowledgment of liability made in writing signed by the party which is sought to be made liable under it. The principle governing all cases where Section 19 is invoked for extending limitation is well established: "To take a demand out of the statute a limitation on the ground of an acknowledgment, the language of the debtor must amount to an unequivocal admission of a subsisting debt, that is subsisting at the time of the acknowledgment"--Law of Limitation by Rustumji, (5th Edition, Vol. 1 p. 297). But the difficulty is in applying the principle to individual. Whether any particular writing amounts to an admission of an existing debt depends upon its language and the context in which it was written. No rigid rule beyond the general principle enunciated above can be pronounced which will apply, to all writings in all circumstances. In the case before the Privy Council cited by MR. L. M. Pant the document in dispute was a balance-sheet signed by the directors long after the expiry of the period to which the balance-sheet related, and the Privy Council held that "the Directors' signature on the balance-sheets did not refer to a liability at the date of signature but to a liability which existed when the balance-sheet was made up." I have examined all the three Allahabad cases cited by MR. Pant in all of which the Court held that the document in question did not amount to an acknowledgment of liability on the date when it was signed.