AVULA CHARAMUDI Vs. MARRIBOYINA RAGHAVULU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It has been argued before us that the agreement Exhibit G on which the plaintiff sues for a reconveyance for the land to him is void as being opposed to the rule against perpetuities inasmuch as no period is fixed during which the plaintiff may claim to hava the land reconveyed : the argument is that under Exhibit G the land would be tied up for an indefinite period as the plaintiff would be entitled to assert his right at any time however remote. The short answer to this argument is that the land is not tied up by Exhibit G; and that there is a mere personal contract between the contracting parties, which does not create any interest in the land, though it may have some reference to the land. This answer is met by the contention that if the agreement to reconvey contained in Exhibit G is a valid contract, then specific performance of it could be had under the Specific Relief Act, Section 27 (b) from any subsequent purchaser of the land who had notice of it; that therefore the agreement to reconvey must be taken to be a covenant running with the land and as such amounting to an interest in land; and that if so the attempt to create such an interest for an indefinite period of time must fail under the Transfer of Property Act Section 14 which must be applied as the rule of Hindu Law is not less stringent than that contained in the section Ramasami Pattar v. Chinna Asari (1901) I.L.R. 24 M. 449,467-9.

(2.) Our attention was drawn to London and South Westren Railway Co. v. Gomm (1882) 20 Ch D 562 which has been referred to or followed in India in Kolathu Aiyar v. Banga Vadhyar (1912) 24 M.L.J. 84 Harris Paik v. Jahuruddi Gazi (1897) 2 C.W.N. 575 Nolun Chandra Soot v. Nabab Ali Sarkar (1900) 5 C.W.N 343 Kalimaddi Bhuya v. Beazuddin Ahmad (1909) 10 C.L.J. 626.

(3.) The decisions of English Courts cannot be followed without caution inasmuch as the rules of law and equity relating to covenants running with the land as laid down in Tulk v. Moxhay (1848) 2 P.W. 774 with the limitations placed upon those rules by such decisions as Haywood v. The Brunswick Permanent Benefit Building Society (1881) 8 Q.B.D. 403 and London and South Western Railway Go. v. Gomm (1882) 20 Ch. D. 562 may have a different effect from the law which has to be enforced in British India by reason of Section 27 (6) of the Specific Relief Act and Section 40 of the Transfer of Property Act. It may be that covenants which would not run with the land in England would in British India be enforceable as against persons having notice of them. We refer however to English decisions not so much for taking from them the law as if it were directly and in terms applicable to India but for the elucidation of some of those general principles with which the statutary law of India deals.