Alienation Made In Excess Of Power To Transfer Would Be Invalid To That Extent: Chhattisgarh High Court

The Chhattisgarh High Court has recently held that the alienation made in excess of power to transfer would be, to the extent of the excess of power, invalid. The Court noted that a document that is voidable has to be actually set aside before taking its legal effect.

A Division Bench of Justice Goutam Bhandari and Sanjay S. Agarwal remarked that distinction can be made between cases where a document is wholly or partially invalid so that it can be disregarded by any court or authority and one where it has to be actually set aside before it can cease to have legal effect.

It referred to Section 32 of the Specific Relief Act to note that the Court is empowered to cancel the sale in part or allow it where an instrument is evidence of different rights or different obligations.

The appeal is directed against the judgment of Additional District Judge, Raipur which allowed the suit. The plaintiff filed a suit for cancellation of sale deed and declaration of title along with the respondents. In the plaintiff's story, the land in question was purchased by the appellant and since then the plaintiff has been in possession and ownership of the land. In 2013 some disturbance occurred in the possession of land in lieu of which a civil suit was filed which is pending.

The plaintiff is an old woman residing in Indore and got tired of the litigation, she gave her power of attorney to Satpal Singh Bhatia. Through an order of the court, the woman got to know that Satpal sold the entire land to her mother. Therefore, certain police reports were made and cancellation of the sale deed was agreed to be done but eventually defaulted.

Moreover, the sale consideration was not paid to the plaintiff and by the power of attorney did not authorize the sale of land and thus the sale is a nullity. The trial court canceled the sale deed for a portion of the land, which was beyond the power conferred by power of attorney and the defendant was permanently restrained from transferring the property more than their part of the purchase of land. Therefore the plaintiff has filed an appeal.

In deciding whether the trial court was justified in partially canceling the dead, the court referred to the case of Murugan v. Kesava Gounder through legal representatives, where it was held that,

"15. Salmonds on Jurisprudence, 12th Edn., has noticed the distinction between valid, void and voidable in the following passage : "...... A valid agreement is one that is fully operative in accordance with the intent of parties. A void agreement is one which entirely fails to receive legal recognition or sanction, the declared will of the parties being wholly destitute of legal efficacy. A voidable agreement stands midway between these two cases. It is not a nullity, but its operation is 27 conditional and not absolute."

Therefore, it noted that the sale deed is not void to say that it is the outcome of fraud, the question before the court was what would be the validity of sale-deed when it exceeded the area given under power of attorney. The court noted that it will be governed by the principle applicable on the sale of property of minors.

"The disposal of immovable property of minor made by the natural guardian is voidable, it is valid till it id avoided in accordance with the law. The rights conferred by a registered sale deed are good enough against the whole world and the sale can be avoided in case the property sold is of a minor by a natural guardian at the instance of minor or any person claiming under him."

Case Title: Dr. Surijit Behl v. Jaspal Singh Bhatia

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Chh) 21

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