GARIB SINGH Vs. MEWA SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The second appeal is at the instance of the defendant who claimed to be the subsequent purchaser in a suit for specific performance. The suit had been filed against one Hazura Singh for enforcement of an agreement dated 31.12.1980 for sale of an agricultural land. The second defendant was a subsequent purchaser who claimed that he had purchased the property for value without notice on 10.04.1981. The plaintiff's contention was that the transaction was not genuine. The 3 rd defendant was Nasib Singh who claimed under an independent agreement of sale and who had also filed a suit for injunction against the defendant from selling the property. The trial Court found that the agreement dated 31.12.1980 was ante-dated and was not genuine. In so holding, the Court took note of the fact that the endorsement on the reverse side of the second page of the agreement contained some alteration in the date by modifying the date as 31.12.1980 from 1981. The Court also found that in the stamp register produced through the stamp vendor, the sale of stamp for the year 1981 had not started in the separate page but it had started in the very same page which concluded the sale of stamp papers for the year 1980. The Court reasoned that it should have been from a separate page and even the accounts maintained by the stamp vendor showed that the total amount collected upto the year 1980 had not been concluded in a separate page but it had been brought over in the next year as well. This, according to the trial Court, was in conflict with the Stamp Rules requiring a particular manner of maintenance of sales register of stamps by stamp vendors.

(2.) The appellate Court reversed the judgment of the trial Court by holding that there was no alteration or modification in the date or year on the reverse page of the stamp papers and the suggestion to the vendor that there had been a correction in the year had been actually denied by him. The Court found nothing unusual about the sales of stamps for the year as entered in the stamp vendor's register to be continued in the very same page after leaving a gap for sales of stamps that commenced on 03.01.1981. The Court found that the evidence by the first defendant that he had been made a victim of fraud by being administered with some substance in the liquor that kept him away from his senses was not supported by any in the written statement. It also found that there had been several collusive suits instituted at the instance of the third parties, one by Nasib Singh and another by one Harbhajan Singh seeking for injunction against the 1 st defendant without making the plaintiff a party. The Court found that even as regards the consideration, the same was said to have been paid by the second defendant but there had been no consistent evidence. The sale was purported to have been made through the first defendant through his power of attorney and it was stated in evidence by the power of attorney that a portion of sale consideration as Rs. 3,300/- had been received by his principal about 4 to 5 months earlier, while the defendant himself gave evidence to the effect that he paid a portion of consideration of Rs. 3,300/- 3 or 4 days prior to the execution of sale deed to the power of attorney. With vital contradiction on even a major portion of consideration, the Court found that there had been no bona fides in the purchase. The Court, therefore, reversed the judgment of the trial Court and decreed the plaintiff's suit.

(3.) This Court has admitted the appeal without framing any substantial questions of law which is not a proper procedure. I, therefore, urged the counsel to formulate his argument from which I deduced the following substantial questions of law:-