CHIKKAM SESHAMMA Vs. CHIKKAM AMMIRAJU AND FIVE ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It has been found by both courts that the deed in question was obtained by coercion, the coercion consisting in a threat by the fifth witness for the plaintiffs to his wife and son that he would commit suicide if they did not execute the document.

(2.) It is easy to set up such a defence and the evidence in support of it should therefore be very closely scrutinized before it is held to be made out. Here it has been found as a fact and we are not at liberty to interfere with the finding on second appeal.

(3.) The case now comes before us on a Letters Patent Appeal owing to a difference of opinion between Sadasiva Ayyar and Moore, JJ., as to whether the fact as found amounted to coercion within the meaning of Section 15 of the Indian Contract Act.