Burden of Proof

An Unreplied Legal Notice and a Wrongly Dated Stamp Paper: Kerala High Court Affirms a Specific Performance Decree

In Francis @ Kuruvila v. N.T. Joseph, the Kerala High Court upheld a trial court's decree for specific performance of a 2007 agreement to sell 56.5 cents of land, rejecting the defendant's claim that the agreement was fabricated from blank stamp papers he had handed over for an unrelated 2002 loan — a claim undone by his own admitted signature on a later payment endorsement, an unanswered legal notice, and a stamp paper that was, on the record, purchased only in 2007.