COLLECTOR OF MEERUT IN CHARGE, COURT OF WARDS AND SPECIAL MANAGER OF ESTATE OF BIBI NAUSHABA BEGUM Vs. LALA HARDIAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal must prevail and the objection filed by the appellant under Section 11, Encumbered Estates Act, must be allowed. There is ample authority in support of the view that, even though a person may be disqualified to enter into a contract, such disqualification does not debar that person from being transferee under a conveyance. The reason for this view is that totally different considerations apply when a matter passes from the domain of contract into that of a conveyance. It is on this ground that it has been held that even though a minor is incompetent to enter into a contract, no such disability attaches to him in the matter of transfer of property, and a sale deed executed in his favour is valid and enforceable. In the present case we are concerned with a person who was a ward of the Court. Section 37, Court of Wards Act, enacts that a ward shall not be competent to transfer or create any charge on, or interest in, any part of his property which is under the superintendence of the Court of Wards, or to enter into any contract which may involve him in pecuniary liability....

(2.) It would be noted that the disabilities cast on a ward by this section extend only to a transfer of, or creation of a charge on, his property by the ward or to his entering into a contract which may impose a pecuniary liability on him. There is nothing in the section to indicate that the Legislature intends to prohibit a ward from becoming the transferee of property. The facts that have given rise to the present appeal lie within a narrow compass. One Mohammad Saddiq Ali Shah married three wives, his third wife being Naushaba Begum whose property was and is under the charge of the Court of Wards. After Naushaba Begum had become a ward of the Court, Saddiq Ali executed a sale deed of the property in dispute in her favour for a sum of Rs. 14,000. Out of the sale consideration, Rs. 4600 were paid in cash by Naushaba Begum to Sadiq Ali, and the balance of the sale consideration was left with Naushaba Begum with the direction that the latter should pay that amount to certain creditors of Saddiq Ali. Saddiq Ali Shah filed an application under Section 4, Encumbered Estates Act, and during the pendency of that application he died and his sons were substituted as the applicants in his place. In his application Saddiq Ali had not shown the properties sold by him to Naushaba Begum, but on written statements being filed by certain creditors that property was included by the Special Judge in the list of the properties belonging to the applicants. The Collector of Meerut in charge of the Court of Wards then filed an objection under Section 11, Encumbered Estates Act, maintaining that the properties sold to Naushaba Begum belonged to her and could not be included in the list of the properties of the applicants under the En- cumbered Estates Act. The creditors opposed the objection of the Collector on the ground that as Naushaba Begum was, on the date of the sale deed, a ward of the Court, the sale in her favour was void in view of the provisions of Section 37, Court of Wards Act. This contention of the creditors prevailed in both the Courts below. The Collector of Meerut, being dissatisfied with the decrees of the Courts below, filed the present appeal in this Court. The appeal came for hearing before a Bench of which one of us was a member and then the following issue was remitted to the lower appellate Court: Whether the sale deed, dated 29 June 1927, executed by Saddiq Ali Shah in favour of Bibi Naushaba Begum represented a genuine transaction and was acted upon or not?

(3.) The finding returned by the lower appellate Court on this issue is in favour of the plaintiff-appellant and is to the effect that the sale deed was genuine arid was acted upon. The sole question that remains for consideration in the appeal, therefore, is whether the decision of the Courts below that the sale deed offended against the provisions of Section 37, Court of Wards Act, and was void, is correct. In our judgment the sale deed was perfectly valid and in no way contravenes the provisions of Section 37.