VIZAGAPATAM SUGAR DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LIMITED, BY ITS REPUTED SECRETARY, SUKHAVASI BRAHMANDA NAIKULU PATRULU GARU Vs. TMUTHURAMAREDDI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts relevant to the answer of the question propounded to us in this case can be very briefly stated. The predecessor-in-title of the plaintiff, in return for the allotment to him of a number of shares in the Vizagapatam Sugar Development Company, Limited, handed over certain lands, theretofore his property, to the company for the purpose of their business in the year 1907. No registered sale deed was ever executed embodying the transaction, but the company has been in possession of the lands ever since that date. It is now sought to recover these lands on the ground that no title passed to the company in the absence of a registered document. Two main answers were made; first, that as the defendant Company had a valid contract enforceable by specific performance, they could rely upon that by way of defence to the suit; secondly, that they could rely on their possession as such part performance of the contract as would take it out of the operation of the statute. There can be no doubt that the latter question has been directly referred to us; as to the former, it is more doubtful, though the reference of the learned Judges to Kurri Veer a Reddi V/s. Kurri Bapi Reddi (1906) I.L.R. 29 M. 336 would seem to suggest that it was in their minds.

(2.) On the question of part performance, there can be no doubt that there is an express authority of this Court in Ramanathan V/s. Ranganathan (1917) I.L.R. 40 M. 1134 to the effect that Sec. 54 of the Transfer of Property Act (IV of 1882) by implication excludes any right to set up an equity, such as possession in pursuance of a subsisting and enforceable contract of sale, against a registered title, even as between the parties to such contract.

(3.) With respect, we think that such a construction involves a confusion of thought between two essentially different conceptions. What the statute enacts is that a document of title to land - a conveyance in short - can only acquire validity, can only in fact be provable, on registration. So far from forbidding unregistered contracts for the sale of land, it expressly recognizes their existence, denying to them only the creation of an interest in or charge upon the land itself - and therefore leaving their contractual effect as between the parties to the contract unimpaired. Were there no other guide to us we should be prepared on principle to hold that the decision of the majority of the learned Judges in I.L.R. 40 Mad. 1134 was erroneous. In fact our opinion is fortified by two other considerations. In the first place without saying that the decision under review is definitely and necessarily in conflict with the two rulings of the Privy Council that have been cited to us Mahomed Musa V/s. Aghore Kumar Ganguli (1944) I.L.R. 42 C. 801 (P.C.) and Venkayamma Rao V/s. Appa Rao (1916) I.L.R. 39 M. 509 (P.C.), it is clearly contrary to the indicated trend of their Lordships opinion. In the next place, every other Court in India has taken the opposite view and we cannot but attach great weight to that fact.