Ammayamma vs Pushpak Developers and Builders

Ram Mohan Reddy, J.—Defendant in O.S. No. 9714/2005 on the file of the XVII Additional City Civil Judge (CCH-16), Bengaluru, aggrieved by the order dated 10.10.2012 rejecting the objections over marking of the agreement of sale dated 17.11.2003 introduced in evidence by the respondent/plaintiff has presented this petition.

There is no dispute that in the agreement of sale dated 17.11.2003, allegedly executed by the petitioner in favour of respondents provides for several covenants which include the following:

"5. The sale transaction shall be completed within six months from the date of delivery of peaceful vacant position of the said property by the vendor to the purchaser.

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8(e) The purchaser can make any residential layout in the schedule land and form roads, make bifurcation of sites, to make drainage's to get electrical facilities in the land and sell any site or portion of any land to any purchaser to any sale consideration amount and receive the advance sale consideration amount, the purchaser entitled to sell and execute any site to any purchaser in the concerned sub-registrar office and complete the sale transaction between the purchaser and incoming purchaser."

There is no dispute that the suit instituted by the respondent is for specific performance of the agreement of sale dated 17.11.2003, on the premise, that, the aforesaid terms of agreement were not complied with by the petitioner/land lady, tantamounting to breach of terms.

Articles 5(e)(i) and 5(f) of the Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957, (for short "the Act") reads thus:

In the light of the aforesaid provisions of the Act, undoubtedly, the terms of the agreement in question require the agreement to be stamped with duty under the Act. Admittedly, the document bears stamp duty of Rs. 150/-, which is certainly not the required duty under the Act.

Petitioner having opposed marking of the said agreement of sale, was incumbent upon the Court below to examine the aforesaid two terms of the agreement with reference to the provisions of law supra and thereafter, decide over the sustainability of the objection. A reading of the order impugned discloses that the Court below is said to have applied its mind to the aforesaid terms and there afterwards held thus:

What is apparent from the aforesaid reasoning is, the Trial Judge has no understanding of the said terms in the agreement and misread the same to record a perverse conclusion.

In my considered opinion, the order impugned rejecting the objections of the petitioner over the marking of the agreement of sale when introduced in evidence is shown to be ex-facie perverse, calling for interference in exercise of supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

In the result, petition is allowed. The order in so far as it relates to marking the document/agreement of sale as Ex. P. 1 is quashed. The Court below is directed to consider and pass orders over impounding the said document under the Act, strictly in accordance with law.