RAM KUMAR Vs. MOHINDER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CM No.8109 -C of 2011 in RSA No.2628 of 1982 Application for impleadment of legal representatives of respondent No.7 is allowed. Registry to carry out necessary amendment in the memo of parties.

(2.) IN RSA Nos.1708 and 1709 of 1983, there are other incidental issues which could be disposed of immediately before undertaking the exercise on issue relating to limitation for redemption. There were two suits, one at the instance of the mortgagee's representative, seeking for a declaration that he has become the owner of the property by the failure of the mortgagor to redeem the property within 60 years under the law of Limitation Act of 1908 and other issue was at the instance of the representative of the mortgagor seeking for recovery of possession of property on an offer to pay the mortgage money. The mortgagor claimed in the said suit that he had also made the payment and acknowledged by mortgagee through receipt dated 28.02.1979. The document of mortgage was not filed, but there is no dispute about the fact that there existed a mortgage and the same was recorded in the revenue entries. I am not, therefore, detaining the case for consideration of when the document of mortgage was executed. III. Redemption of Mortgages Suit 1913, not a bar to civil action for redemption (Subsidiary issue 2)

(3.) IT is also contended that the mortgage receipt relied on by the mortgagor was a fabrication and in any event it required registration and an unregistered receipt purporting to extinguish a mortgage could not be acted on by the Court. The trial Court had found that the mortgage receipt was not genuine and by the very look of it, it showed that the recitals had been deliberately spaced out unevenly to fill up the entire gap from the top of the page to the place where the signature was found in the document. Thetrial Court had also taken note of the fact that there had been a previous litigation where both the mortgagor and the mortgagee had some common interest and while conducting the case, he had left some blank signed papers which had been fraudulently used by the mortgagor to make it appear as though that mortgagee had acknowledged the execution of the mortgage. The trial Court also took special notice of the fact that the mortgage receipt had been pasted with the thick sheet at the back to prevent any minute appraisal of a later pasting of the revenue stamp or to conceal any blotting of ink arising on account of user of an old paper. The trial Court also took note of the fact that the revenue stamp itself had been affixed somewhere at the middle of the page and there were writings above and beneath the revenue stamp. There was simply no possibility for someone to make the recitals of the receipt by fixing the revenue stamp on the middle of the page and securing the signature at the foot of the page. All the physical features noted by the trial Court discredited the document. Although purely factual, I am setting this out only to observe that the Appellate Court had been perverse in its approach in setting aside these findings to hold that the mortgage receipt was genuine. I reverse the finding to set the record straight. In the view that I ultimately take on the legal issue, the validity of receipt itself may not have any bearing. V. Inadmissibility of unregistered mortgage receipt (Subsidiary issue 4)