Unpaid Sale Price Does Not Void a Registered Sale Deed; Seller Must Sue for It: Rajasthan High Court

By a registered sale deed of 16.04.2009 the appellant sold about one hectare of agricultural land near Jaipur to the respondents for Rs 24 lakh paid by cheques, handing over possession and allowing mutation in their names (paras 12-14). The buyers then learned that on 07.02.2009 she had agreed to sell the same land to another person and taken Rs 11 lakh, and on 16.05.2009 they asked their bank to stop payment (paras 9, 15-16). She sued to have the deed declared void for want of consideration. The trial court refused cancellation but ordered the buyers to deposit Rs 24 lakh with 4% interest from 16.05.2009 (para 1).

The execution of the registered deed, the cheques recited in it, the handing over of possession and the mutation were admitted; the appellant never pleaded that the deed was forged or unsigned (paras 12-14). Before that sale she had agreed to sell the same land to another buyer for Rs 22 lakh and taken Rs 11 lakh; the police found her thumb impression on that agreement genuine and charged her with cheating, while her own complaint ended in a final report (paras 15-17). The buyers stopped the cheques only after learning of that earlier deal, so bad faith could not be inferred (paras 16-17). A receipt showed Rs 8.5 lakh paid to her son, who managed her affairs (para 18), and the deed did not make payment of the cheques a condition of its validity (para 19). Following Dahiben, Vidhyadhar, Kaliaperumal and Raziya Begum, payment of the entire price is not a condition precedent to a sale under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act; the remedy for unpaid price is recovery, not cancellation (paras 20-23).