BASANTI BIBI Vs. CHUNNI BIBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises in a suit brought by the respondents for an alleged balance of purchase money and interest thereon.

(2.) On the 21st of July, 1909, the respondents sold some zamindari property to the appellant for Rs. 15,000. Part of the property had been sold in execution of a decree and if, was intended that the appellant should get the execution sale set aside. But it wag discovered that according to order XXI, Rule 89, as then interpreted, neither the vendors nor the purchasers could get the sale set aside. Accordingly the appellant relinquished her interest in the property by a registered deed. The respondents then raised on a mortgage of the property in favour of one Parsotam Das, a sum sufficient to pay oil the decree-holder and in due course the sale was set aside. On the 28th of October, 1909, the respondents executed in favour of the appellant a deed whereby they sold to her the property which, had been the subject of the earlier sale together with some other property for the stated sum of Rs, 40,000. The deed contains a recital that the respondents have received the whole of this sum and have out of it paid off Parsotam Das and discharged other debts. Before the Sub-Registrar they received a sum of Rs. 2,400, and acknowledged the receipt of Rs. 37,600. On the same day they gave the appellant a receipt for Rs. 37,600.

(3.) The present suit was instituted on the 3rd of November, 1912, the last day of limitation. The respondents allege that they were obliged to sell the property in order to raise some cash and pay off some creditors; that certain persons acting on behalf of the appellant induced them to acknowledge the receipt of the consideration in full and to sign the receipt for Rs. 37,600, by representing that they would, after the registration of the deed, pay off certain creditors of the respondents and make over to them proof of the payment and account for the balance, but they bad paid only Rs. 11,726, to Parsotam Das. Giving the appellant credit for that amount, for Rs. 1,000, spent in connection with the execution of the deed and for Rs. 2,400, paid at registration, the respondents claimed a decree for the balance Rs. 24,874, and interest thereon. The appellant s defence was that the real consideration for the sale was Rs. 15,126, made up of the three sums of Rs. 11,726, Rs. 1,000, and Rs. 2,400, mentioned above and that the property was not worth more. She said that Parsotam Das wished to buy the property, hut for reasons of their own the respondents did not wish to sell to him; therefore they gave out that they were selling the property for Rs. 40,000, a sum which Parsotam Das was not prepared to pay, and they induced the appellant to agree to this sum being entered in the sale-deed in order that Parsotam Das might have no cause for complaint.