Specific performance
9 articles
A Perpetual Lease Promised in 1976 Cannot Be Demanded in 2002: Delhi High Court on Renewal Covenants, Agreements to Agree and Limitation
A tenant who had held an 11-month tenancy of a Janpath floor since 1976 sued in 2004 for a perpetual lease and a declaration that his rent was Rs 221. The Delhi High Court upheld rejection of the plaint at the threshold, on three separate footings: uncertainty of the covenant, delay, and the limits of declaratory relief.
13 min readInjunction First, Specific Performance Never: Supreme Court Applies Order II Rule 2 to Defeat a Suit on an Oral Agreement to Sell
In Bombay Garage Ahmedabad Limited v. J P Iscon Private Limited, the Supreme Court held that a withdrawn suit for injunction simpliciter, filed without leave to claim specific performance, bars a later suit for that relief, and that a heavy burden on the plaintiff to prove a concluded oral contract is not discharged by the defendants' evasive evidence.
13 min readA Specific Performance Decree Cannot Resurrect Acquired Land: Karnataka High Court Holds the Military Land Register Conclusive Against a 1995 Agreement to Sell
In Union of India v. Mohsin Sharieff, a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court reversed a writ order that had restored a private buyer's name to the revenue records of land acquired in 1943 for the Yelahanka Air Force Station. Reading the acquisition file as one continuous chain and applying the nemo dat principle, the Bench held that a decree to which the Defence authorities were not party could not create title.
14 min readA Registered Power of Attorney, Once Exercised, Cannot Be Undone by Its Own Later Cancellation: Madras High Court on Sections 200–202 of the Contract Act
In C.Rajendran v. P. Arumugam, the Madras High Court held that an agreement of sale executed by a registered power-of-attorney agent binds the principal so long as the power was valid and unrevoked at the time of the agreement, rejecting the principals' argument that a subsequent cancellation of the power, and a disputed reading of its acreage, could defeat a decree for specific performance.
13 min readAn 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.
13 min readSupreme Court: A Second Appeal Cannot Trade an Upheld Specific Performance Decree for Cash
In Sobaran Singh v. Gordhan Singh, the Supreme Court reversed a High Court order that had upheld a trial court's findings on a decades-old specific performance suit, yet substituted the decreed sale with a large cash payment 'to maintain equity.' The Court restored the original 1979 decree, holding that once the buyer's readiness and willingness stood affirmed and the sale had already been executed through the court in 1979, there was no discretionary room left to convert the transaction into compensation four and a half decades later, particularly where the buyer had been in continuous possession throughout.
13 min readMadhya Pradesh High Court: Once a Specific Performance Suit Is Filed, a Buyer's Good Faith No Longer Matters
Deciding two connected first appeals from a decree for specific performance of an agreement to sell agricultural land near Indore, the Madhya Pradesh High Court applied the Supreme Court's recent reconciliation of Section 19(b) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 with Section 52 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, holding that a sale executed after suit is filed is bound by the doctrine of lis pendens regardless of the buyer's good faith. The Court went on to correct a structural defect in the trial court's decree: a pendente lite transferee is not simply written out of the title by declaring the sale deed void, but must be directed to join the original vendor in executing the conveyance to the decree-holder.
14 min readSpecific Performance When Litigation Drags On and Property Prices Rise: Should the Buyer Still Get the Decree?
Price escalation alone is not a defence. Buyer-caused delay is. This guide explains how Indian courts separate the two, and how a decree can be moulded to balance equities.
14 min readHe Who Seeks Equity Must Do Equity: V.N.A.S. Chandran v. S. Venila on Conduct, Delay and Discretion in Specific Performance
The buyers may well have been able to pay. They still lost the property. This case note examines how inconsistent conduct, a retaliatory FIR and two decades of delay defeated a decree of specific performance.
14 min read