RAMCHANDRA KASTURCHAND Vs. DAULAT DURGA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HOUSE Nos. 42 and 43 on the Municipal Office Road, were attached in execution of their decrees by three individual -creditors. The appellant Ramchandra objected to the attachment in each case but all the objections were dismissed. He therefore, filed three separate Baits under the provisions of O. 21. R. 63, Civil P.C., for a declaration of his title to the property by virtue of a sale by Dhanna on 30 -8 -1940 evidenced by the sale -deed Ex. P -1.

(2.) THE contesting defendants denied the sale and its validity in general terms and the judgment -debtor remained absent. The suits were tried by Mr. Ramsingh, 2nd Additional Munsiff, Indore. The plaintiff -appellant succeeded in two of them (NO. 492/44 and 281/1944) against the attaching creditors, Daulat Durga Lodha and Nathulal Narsingh Mali but failed in suit No. 486/1942 against the Sarvajnik Sahakari Saustha and Banwarilal. The unsuccessful parties appealed to the learned District Judge, Indore who upheld the dismissal in suit No. 456/1942, and reversing the decrees in the other two cases, and dismissed the plaintiff's suit. The plaintiff has filed three separate appeals, but as counsel agree that the same questions of law and material facts arise in all the cases this judgment will dispose of and govern all of them. It was first contended that on proof of the execution of the sale deed, the onus should have been put on the contesting defendants to prove circumstances vitiating the transaction. It is accepted principle of law that a party must prove his own case and suits under O. 21, R. 68 are no exception. To prove a sale where a third party contests it there must be proof of the existence in the vendor of the title the sale -deed purports to convey; and there must also be proof of consideration and as observed in Jamaher v. Askaran,, 30 I.C. 855 : (A.I.R. 1916 Cal. 666) it is not enough for the plaintiff to rely on the innocent appearance of the deed but he must further prove that the deed is as good as it looks. A similar view has been taken in Appathurai V. Vellayan Chettiar, : 55 Mad. 748: (A.I.R. 1932 Mad. (302), wherein the learned Judges observed on the burden of proof :

(3.) THE principle was affirmed in Anna Mali Chettiar v. Ramnathan Chettiar,, A.I.R. 1947 P.C. 98 :, (1947) 2 M.L.J. 54) wherein it was held that where the plaintiff in a suit under O. 21, R. 63, Civil P.C., proves prima facie that the consideration as stated in the sale -deed had passed the burden shifts to the other party to prove the contrary.