CHANDULAL DAMODARDAS Vs. KESHAVLAL KUBERDAS AMIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE suit which has given rise to this second appeal was brought by the members of the firm known as " THE Bavla Gujarat Cotton Press " for the specific performance of an oral agreement for a lease entered upon between the firm and one of its members, defendant No.1. THE agreement took place on September 21, 1925, and it has been found as a fact by the Courts below that its terms were that the plaintiff firm should take the property upon lease for fifty-one years beginning from the date of the agreement at an annual rent of Rs. 308-12-0, and that a formal lease was to be executed : but there is a finding that the date for the execution of the lease was left indefinite and that it depended upon defendant No. I himself having a title to convey upon the Thakore (who is admittedly the owner of the land) letting it first to Naran, and Naran then letting it to defendant No.1. A number of defences were raised but were overruled, and the execution of a registered lease was ordered.

(2.) IN this second appeal by defendant No.1, four points are urged :- (1) that the plaintiff firm consists in fact of more than twenty members and,, therefore, under Section 4 of the INdian Companies Act, it cannot be recognised for want of registration of the company and cannot bring this suit; (2) that the agreement upon which the plaintiffs rely was not so much art agreement for a lease as an actual lease, and it is void for want of writing: and registration under Section. 107 of the Transfer of Property Act; (3) that the agreement is indefinite in its terms, and both for this reason and because* three years have elapsed from the time when it became enforceable (assuming that it was enforceable) it cannot now be enforced; and (4) that defendant No.1 is himself a member of the firm with whom the agreement was executed and thus occupies the position both of plaintiff and of defendant, and therefore the present suit is bad.

(3.) IT is then contended that the agreement is indefinite. The evidence is unsatisfactory; but nevertheless both the Courts below have come to a definite conclusion as to the main terms of the agreement, namely that it was to be for an annual rent of Rs. 308-12-0 and for a term of fifty-one years. As regards the formal lease, it is held that no definite date was fixed. The plaintiff says in his evidence that the lease was to be given in a month or two; but I doubt if that statement can be taken literally, since the date of the lease must have depended upon the date when defendant No.1 obtained his title to lease the land, and that would not be until the Thakore had first leased it to Naran and Naran leased it to defendant No.1.