GANGA BAKHSH SINGH Vs. CHHINGGI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal must be decreed. The facts are very simple. The lower appellate Court finds that the respondent and the appellants agreed to buy and sell respectively certain lands in two villages adjoining the town of Cawnpore, at a certain rate per bigha. The agreement was put into writing on the 22nd of August 1919 and a sum of Rs. 450 was advanced by the respondent to the appellants by way of earnest-money. One of the appellants was a minor and it was agreed that permission to sell would be obtained from the District Judge. Such permission was actually obtained in August 1920. The plaintiff-respondent brought the suit, out of which this appeal has arisen, on the 18 of August 1922. two years after the sanction to sell had been obtained, on the allegation that in January 1920 the Improvement Trust notified their intention to acquire the lands agreed to be sold, and thereupon he asked the appellants to refund the earnest-money, but they refused to do so.

(2.) In the plaint a faint allegation was also made to the effect that the defendants made unnecessary delay in obtaining the sanction of the District Judge, but nothing turns on that. There is no finding that there was a default on the part of the defendants.

(3.) The Courts below were of opinion that as the Improvement Trust notified their intention to acquire the lands, and as it was notorious that the Improvement Trust never paid adequate value of the lands, the circumstances had so changed as to justify the respondent to rescind the contract and to claim the earnest-money.