RAJA HAZARI Vs. BHAGWANDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants and one Sambhusaran are members of one family of which appellant 1, Raja Hazari, is the head, and they all agreed to sell jointly to the plaintiffs certain property which they held in common. All of them except Sambhusaran executed the necessary sale-deed on 14th November 1925. On his refusal to execute the deed a suit for specific performance was filed against the whole family, which resulted in a decree ordering that Sambhusaran should execute the sale-deed also and that all of them should get it registered. In execution of this decree Sambhusaran's signature was affixed on 10th November 1926 to the document already signed by the others, and on 6th December 1926, 26 days later, it was presented for registration.

(2.) THE Sub-Registratar held, in an order which was upheld by the District Registrar in appeal, that, under Section 24, Registration Act, the presentation was time barred against all the executants except Sambhusaran. The document seems to have been registered as against him. The plaintiffs accordingly filed the present suit under Section 77, Registration Act, against the executants other than Sambhusaran, claiming a decree directing the registration of the document. This decree they have been given, and the defendants have appealed against it.

(3.) THE contention of the appellants as to the effect of Sections 23 and 24, Registration Act combined, on a document executed by different persons at different times, is that registration of it is time barred against each executant four months after his execution. That is entirely impossible because it involves an amendment of the existing law by the substitution of "must" for "may" in Section 24, which is a matter for the legislature. If it had been intended to allow four months only after each execution, effect could have been given to that intention by the use of the word "must" in Section 24 - though that would be a peculiarly clumsy way of doing it - the simpler and much more probable way would be to add an explanation to Section 23 to the effect that the execution mentioned in it meant each execution when there were several.