KOTAM REDDI SEETAMMA Vs. VANNELAKANTI KRISHNASWAMI RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant is the appellant, the plaintiffs having obtained a decree in the lower courts for the specific performance of an alleged contract made by the defendant in favour of the plaintiffs to grant a lease of the plaint lands for a term of 12 years.

(2.) I do not think that the plaint relies upon any oral agreement to give a lease of the plaint lands, independent of the "letter" (agreeing to give such a lease) which was executed by the defend-ant. The written statement while admitting the genuineness of the letter, expressly states that the letter is legally ineffective for want of registration.

(3.) Ordinarily, when the terms of a contract preceded by pro-posals, negotiations, conditional acceptances, counter proposals and so on, are reduced finally to the form of a document, signed by one or both of the parties, the strong presumption is, not that there are two independent contracts, (the first an oral contract and the second, the written contract), but that the written con-tract is the only final contract between the parties, Ridgway v. Wharton. (1856-7) 6 H.L.C. 238 & 264 As West, J. puts it in Burjorji Cursetji Panthaki v. Muncherji (1880) I.L.R. 5 B. 143. 149 " when the parties have agreed to commit their oral agreement to writing, a presumption was raised by the Roman Law and is raised by the Prussian Codes and other modern laws, that the right or obligation is dependent on an execution of the instrument ; " there is a presumption which reason at once recognises, of the merely tentative character of an oral declaration, meant to be superseded by a written one." When a contract is once re-duced to writing, no other evidence can be given of its terms (Section 91 of the Evidence Act).