JAGATSINGH Vs. GANPAT KUNWARJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE main appeal is by the two joint purchasers of a house from respondent (acting on his own) by a sale-deed dated 1-12-1953. A suit by the vendor now appearing through his wife as his next friend praying for the cancellation of the sale on the ground of his insanity at that time, has been allowed; so the purchasers-appellants have come up in appeal repeating their averments that the vendor was at that time in full possession of his mental powers, and understood what he was doing, and further that he had received the full consideration of Rs. 8,FC0 which according to the defendants appellants was the proper price by satisfaction of two old pro-notes, and the payment in cash of the small marginal amount of Rs. 75. THEre is also an order that the defendants should restore certain movable properties enlisted in the plaint and found to have been left in the house and taken over by the purchasers on the night of 1-12-1953 or to pay their price found by the trial Court. Further, there is a direction regarding the payment of mesne profits for a period of three years immediately before the suit and for the later period till delivery of possession is given to the plaintiff. THEse have been challenged by the appellants. THE plaintiff has for his part filed a cross-objection praying that the mense profits should have been calculated at a rate higher than what has been allowed. As it was, this cross-objection has been filed in forma pauperis which prayer has been treated as a separate miscellaneous civil case. This, it may be noted even here, has not been seriously pressed.

(2.) THE crucial issue in this case is whether at the time of the sale, that is, on the evening or early night of 1st December 1953 at the house of an advocate named Sitaram Verma (D. W. 6) where the Sub- Registrar was called on commission, the vendor, that is the present plaintiff-respondent Ganpat son of Kuvarji, was mentally sound or was insane and incapable of understanding the nature of the act. This at all events is a question of fact, though from time to time Courts have laid down in different ruliDgs principles for .our guidance in solving a problem of this nature. Such principles are in essence rules of prudence and not of law strictly speaking, but still important because the problem of mental soundness on a past date is always difficult and complicated one. THE peculiar situation here is that the plaintiff has, in addition to adducing laymen evidence on the question of his mental soundness, tried to strengthen it by bringing on record several unusual circumstances in the preparation and the registration of the sale-deed and also in regard to the alleged consideration. It is just as if the position taken by the plaintiff is that besides the findings about the mental condition which frankly is based on laymen evidence alone, there are in the circumstances of the sale such features that nobody except a completely mad person could have been the executant of the deed.

(3.) THE questions that arise for decision may be enumerated thus: