PANCHHOO Vs. MOORATSINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal arises out of a suit for specific performance.

(2.) THE relevant facts, shortly stated, are as follows. The plaintiff is a minor. He entered into a contract to purchase for a consideration of Rs. 2,312 the defendant's half-share in 2. 48 acres of Bhumiswami lands. The terms of the contract were embodied in writing, Ex. P-1, dated 1st June 1959. The defendant received Rs. 2,100 as part payment of the price in pursuance of the contract. To the plaintiff's claim for specific performance, the defendant pleaded inter alia that the contract was void and unenforceable being hit by section 165 (4) (b) of the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959. That plea was raised because the suit for specific performance was instituted on 9thnovem-ber 1961 i. e. after the 1959 Code had been brought into force. That plea of his has, however, not prevailed in any of the Courts below, with the result that a decree for specific performance has been passed in favour of the plaintiff.

(3.) THE only questions of substance that were urged before me were; first, that an agreement for sale with a minor being of an executory nature without any mutuality is unenforceable by the minor plaintiff in a suit for specific performance, irrespective of the question whether the contract was for the benefit of the minor or not and secondly, that a contract for sale of Bhumiswami lands, in contravention of section 165 (4) (b) of the Madhya Pradesh land Revenue Code, 1959, is void ab initio and therefore, not capable of being specifically enforced.