LAL SINGH Vs. JOGINDER SINGH (DECEASED) THROUGH LRS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant-plaintiff has filed this appeal challenging judgment dtd. 27/10/1993 wherein the learned Additional District Judge, Patiala, while partly accepting appeal filed by respondent-defendant has set aside a decree passed in favour of plaintiff for possession of suit property by way of specific performance of agreement to sell the suit property and consequently the suit filed by the plaintiff has been decreed for grant of alternate relief only qua recovery of earnest money.

(2.) The case set up by the appellant-plaintiff, as per his plaint, is that the respondent-defendant Joginder Singh had entered into an agreement with the appellant-plaintiff on 23/11/1984 to sell 15 kanals of land for an amount of Rs.35,000.00 and had received an amount of Rs.20,000.00 as earnest money. It was agreed that the registered sale-deed would be executed on or before 15/6/1985. It is further averred that since the respondent-defendant could not get the sale-deed executed, therefore, with the consent of the plaintiff the time for execution of the sale-deed was extended up to 15/6/1986 by way of a fresh agreement dtd. 6/6/1985 and another amount of Rs.6,000.00 was also paid to the defendant out of the balance sale consideration. Thus the plaintiff prayed for possession of the suit property on the basis of the agreements to sell and also made an alternate prayer for refund of the earnest money alongwith damages.

(3.) The respondent-defendant resisted the suit wherein the execution of the agreements for sale of land was denied and a stand was taken that in fact the plaintiff is running a business of commission agent under the name and style of 'M/s Lal Singh Bhagat Singh' and the respondent-defendant had been selling his agricultural produce at the said shop and had also been taking amounts in advance through the business concern of the plaintiff, which used to be adjusted at the time of sale and purchase of the agricultural produce and that all the transactions had been entered in the ledger books of the concern and the plaintiff in view to doubly secure the payments made to the defendant in advance, might have got his signatures on some documents, which must have been converted into the agreements in question. The plaintiff filed replication denying the stand taken by the defendant.