One of the most fundamental aspects of a person's socioeconomic existence is
property. As a result, property act has grown to be a significant field of civil
law. The Property Transfers Act of 1882 addresses the transfer of real estate
between live individuals involving two persons. Prior to the Transfer of
Property Act (1882), English fairness standards were generally used by the
courts in England and India to regulate property transfers. One of the equity
concepts that these courts have embraced is the "part performance" theory. The
Transfer of Property Act (1882) was subsequently amended in 1929 to incorporate
the theory of partial performance, which is based on the fairness doctrine of
English law, and is now part of section 53A.
In contract law, rights are not transferred to third parties before the sale is
complete (as in sales contracts), but if the contract's maker fulfils a portion
of the performance, he or she will be entitled to a refund or specific
performance if: I am entitled. The adversary is hesitant to take over a portion
of the performance in this instance. A person produces capital that cannot be
disputed on grounds if they engage into a contract with another person under
section 53A of the Property Transfer Act and give them authority to act in
accordance with that contract. In such an assignment, evidence or a contract.
The transferor cannot demand ownership of the asset that the purchaser has as
per the instalment doctrine. This rule is designed to safeguard the acquirer in
circumstances when the transferor could defraud by breaching the agreement.
A situation where a transferor and a transferee sign a contract for the transfer
of real estate may occur, in which case the transferee is granted custody of the
property in accordance with the contract's conditions. In reaction to greater
offers to eject the original acquirer from the property, the transferor cannot
approve the original purchase and sale agreement and engage into arrangements
with other parties. The concept of incomplete performance acknowledges the
likelihood of these occurrences while attempting to safeguard the buyer. The
Property Transfer Act of 1882 was amended in 1929 to include section 53A. This
legalized the idea of part performance, which had its origins in English law.
Evolution Of The Doctrine
When one person enters into a transaction with another and authorizes the other
to follow it, that person must comply with the English principle of equity,
which is the foundation of Indian law's part performance principle. This means
that you cannot reject a contract on the grounds that services were not rendered
in accordance with the terms of the contract or there was insufficient evidence.
The Statutes of Frauds, Section of which states that no lawsuit or cause of
action will be sustained for the transfer of real property not documented in
writing by the parties to the transaction, is also subject to English equitable
principles. Although courts have had trouble strictly enforcing this clause,
they have found that if one party only fulfils a portion of a contract's or
agreement's obligations, the other party is still obligated to fulfil the
remainder. In these situations, the court intervened on an equitable basis,
confident that the decision would be based on facts. It deceives the former
party if the other party afterwards refuses to fulfil its obligation.
According to
Elizabeth Madison v. In John Alderson, a man offers to let a lady
work as an unpaid maid in return for his verbal pledge to leave a living
property in his nation. The lady sought execution of an oral agreement under
English equity law after the man passed away without leaving a will, but the
court ruled that there was no obvious connection between her ongoing employment
and the oral agreement. Such a contract is known to exist. This case established
the crucial rule that one will not relinquish property owned under a contract
for sale simply because the transaction has already occurred if they have
already fulfilled or are about to perform any element of the contract.
Did. not
being able to register the location or not being able to do so in the way
described in the contact d. according to pure form. The part performance theory
was therefore established. The case of Mohammad Musa in India was evaluated
using Maddison's case rate.
Scope And Limits Of The Part Performance
The aforementioned equitable principle served as the inspiration for the Indian
idea of part performance, which is included in Section 53-A of the Property
Transfer Act and covers the transferee's defense in two different sorts of
claims. According to Section 53-A of the Registrations (Amendment) Act of 2001,
a party may register behavior that prevents notification of non- performance
under an ownership contract provided the party performs its portion of the
obligation. Register the papers or deed of departure. Second, the transfer is
not done in accordance with the terms of the contract if the instrument of
assignment is ill-formed and has the effect of safeguarding the rights of the
acquirer rather than abrogating such rights.
While not completely adopting them, Section 53-A basically adopts the concepts
of English equity law. While the Indian idea of partial performance only applies
to written contracts, the English doctrine is applicable to both oral and
written agreements. The resistance against partial performance has both good and
bad aspects in England. This indicates that the purchaser has the legal
authority to both independently assert and defend his property. However,
ideology is only seen as defensive and only takes a passive form in India.
Since the introduction of Section 53A of the TPA in 1929, no document has needed
to be registered in order to be covered by this section. Unregistered documents
that included unregistered title deeds were thus accepted. evidence that invokes
section 53A privilege. Late in 2001, the Section 53A provision enabling
unregistered documents was removed from the statute.
Additionally, in 2001, the exception for unregistered products was removed from
Section 49 of the Registrations Act of 1908. Therefore, the legal position was
the same as it was before to 1929, when all real estate claims had to be covered
by registered papers. Only items that have been registered may be utilized under
Section 53A as a consequence of the 2001 revisions.
Some Essentials Conditions Of The Part Performance:
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Property must first be transferred as consideration under a written contract. Only the transfer of mobile property is covered by Section 53-A; the regulation does not apply to the transfer of personal property. Growing crops, standing trees, and grass are not included in the definition of "immovable property" as given in Section 3 of the Property Transfer Act, therefore the restrictions of Section 53-A do not apply if any of these items are taken into consideration. You cannot protest incomplete performance if you own personal property. In Jayavarat Credit and Invest. Co. v. Hamed, it is stated that if such a clause is in place, Section 53-A, which contains provisions permitting the seizure of a hire purchase car if the owner fails to make the installment payments, is not applicable.
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A written agreement that is formally signed by the transferor or its representative is a requirement for part performance under Section 53-A. This requirement has two parts: (a) the contract must be in writing, and (b) the acquirer must sign it personally or on their representative. The document referred to in Section 53-A may take any form, but it must be of a kind that makes it clear what the contract's conditions are. "Oral agreements may not be adequate for part performance, but if such written agreements are lawful under Section 53-A, there is," it was said in Allam Gangadhar Rao v. Gangarao that verbal agreements are also invalid. It alone is a legally binding contract for the defense claims under the aforementioned provisions if reduced to paper.
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Ownership or maintaining ownership is the third crucial factor. The position of the transferee after ownership and the position while ownership is retained are two of its crucial sub-elements. The conditions of this element of the section are satisfied if they pertain to the contract and the contract only if the acquirer takes possession of the body after signing a contract for the transfer of such property. However, if the buyer already possesses the property at the time the contract expires, it is enough for the transferer to suggest continuing to keep it and for the buyer to accept this suggestion.
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The transferee must be willing to fulfill a portion of the contract in order to comply with the Section 53-A concept of part performance. If the transferer has not yet completed all of his tasks, there is another component to this factor. It is acknowledged that the acquirer's interests are only protected by the law if he has clean hands and is willing and prepared to carry out the activities constituting the performance.
Judicial Perspective On The Part Performance
According to many decisions made by Indian courts, oral transactions were
exempted from the Fraud Act in England due to the parti performance concept. As
a result, India withdrew the paperwork that required registration from the
Registration Act and implemented property transfer legislation. The Court also
decided that in order to create a contract between the parties establishing
women's rights, that document must be plain and unambiguous and acknowledged
that even in the situation of part performance, the contract must be clear.
This idea was strengthened in the Indian court case
Mohammad Musa v. Agore Kajar
Ganguli. A compromise property split agreement between the parties in this case
was documented in the Rajinama. Although Razinama was not registered, the
parties still behaved in accordance with it from the time he was 30 until the
time he was 40, at which point one of the parties attempted to dispute it on the
grounds that it was not registered. prosecution of those who the court concluded
that Razinama and its conditions cannot be disputed on the basis of a simple
lack of formality (i.e., failure to register Razinama). However, it was held
that the British idea of partial compliance does not apply in India in the Privy
Council judgement
Ariff v. Jadunath.
This judgement so highlighted the need of
having precise, written agreements that outline the parties' purchasing
agreement., the
Privy Council, held in Pir Bux v. Sardar Muhammad Tahar that
India does not have the part performance concept with eviction procedures.
In
Serandaya Pillai v. Sankaralingam Pillai, this theory was discussed in
relation to another pertinent issue. A written agreement is necessary and the
arrangement must be financial within the judgment's provisions on gifts and
sales, leases, mortgages, and barter. With regard to Srimant Shamrao Suryavanshi
and V. Prahlad Bhairoba Suryavanshi and Anr, all conditions for partial
performance have been satisfied, and the purchaser has obtained a portion of the
contract via ownership or continued possession that fulfils the essential
criteria of doing actions enabling the contract and was able to demonstrate the
readiness to accomplish it.
Findings And Suggestions
Part performance is a deceptive word. Do not follow some part performance act
case law; instead, focus only on preventing fraud. In other words, the same
theme carries on through the sleeve. The prevention of fraud is done by a part
performance and fraud act. American courts have a demonstrable propensity to
base their decisions on straightforward fraud.
However, asserting that the
alleged behavior may be tied to a contract to stop the same evil that the laws
were meant to stop. cases of inexpensive fraud shouldn't be handled unless the
plaintiff is placed in a position if refusing a certain service causes you
irreparable damage. this Results are consistent with and do not go against basic
fairness standards.
A crucial part of property transfer law is the part performance theory. A person
must have signed a contract for a compensated transfer of real estate,
fulfilling legal requirements. The assignor or its representative must properly
execute the assignment in writing. The purpose of the parties to transfer the
property from the transferor to the transferee must be fairly inferred from the
wording of the agreement.
Case Law: Nathulal V. Phoolchand, 1969 SCC 3 120
The sequence in which the contract's duties are fulfilled must be taken into
account when determining whether a party is willing to fulfil certain terms of
the agreement. As a result, the contract's provisions must carry out the
parties' performance in a certain sequence, and one party cannot fulfil the
contract's early-stage commitment to the other party before fulfilling its own.
It is unable to demand or fulfil any commitments.
- A contract is required to transfer property. This may be utilized to ascertain the requirements for the transfer with reasonable certainty. Consideration properly signed in writing by or on behalf of the transferor.
- The property, or a portion of it, is owned by the transferee; or, if they are already owned, some of them should still be owned in order to fulfill the terms of the agreement, and something should have been done to make that possible.
- The transferee must have provided the service in question, or be prepared and willing to do so.
- This theory has no bearing on the rights of a subsequent purchaser, which are transferred without notification and for a price.
Analysis & Conclusion
The purchaser is guaranteed protection under Section 53-A against expropriation
or expulsion via legal action. It does not provide the buyer any additional
rights beyond those they already had under the original agreement, nor does it
grant them any kind of title. The Transferor, however, is free to impose all
additional rights retained under the Principal Agreement onto the Transferee.
Therefore, it is unquestionably true that people who rely on Section 53A only
get a restricted set of rights. This doctrine's evolution in India took a
significant stride forward with judicial involvement in its implementation.
The mere consideration of non-registration cannot surpass the acquirer's
argument since Section 53-A no longer overrides the Registration (Amendment) Act
2001. The job has changed a little bit. Section 53-A has been updated to
incorporate the same since it is now necessary. Courts use this theory to
protect against inconsistencies in the contractual parties' documents or
processes as well as to give (though passive) defenses to an acquirer who
entered into the agreement in good faith and has partially delivered on its
commitments.
Nevertheless, it does the acquirer justice. This clause, which the buyer may
utilize as a defense to pursue their rights under the Transfer of property Act
1882, is particularly significant."
"
In a nation like India, where the majority
of the populace is unaware of the law, incidents where both uneducated and
stupid clients are readily misled are fairly prevalent. is shown. In light of
this, the required actions were done to formally acknowledge the idea of part
performance.
As was previously established, the disparities between Indian and English Law
reveal that the Indian legal system only partly incorporates this concept. The
main condition reduces the potential for rights abuse while restricting the
extent of usage by requiring the presence of a signed contract. However,
removing the exception for using unregistered papers for Section 53A purposes
would certainly undercut the objective of the provision given the social and
economic standing of the Indian population. History has divided part performance
instances into two categories: fraud and occupancy, although the occupancy
group's causes are entirely historical, therefore these examples serve as a
model for more recent situations. I've come to the conclusion that it shouldn't
matter
References:
- Books:
- Mulla, D. F. (2021). "Principles of Mahomedan law." LexisNexis.
- Rattanlal & Dhirajlal. (2020). "The Transfer of Property Act, 1882." LexisNexis.
- Sarkar, S. C. (2018). "The Transfer of Property Act, 1882." Eastern Book Company.
- Poonam Pradhan Saxena. (2018). "Property Law." LexisNexis.
- Journal Articles:
- Singh, H. P. (2017). "Doctrine of Part Performance: An Analysis." Journal of Legal Studies, 1(1), 39-49.
- Sharma, S. K. (2016). "Doctrine of Part Performance and its Applicability." Journal of Indian Law Institute, 58(1), 1-20.
- Ghosh, A. (2015). "Part performance under the Transfer of Property Act, 1882." The Indian Journal of Law and Technology, 10(1), 36-51.
- Kumar, V. (2014). "The Doctrine of Part Performance: A Critical Study." Journal of Legal Studies and Research, 1(1), 10-25.
- Case Law:
- Satya Devi v. Gurnam Singh, AIR 1977 SC 271.
- S. Palaniappa Chettiar v. Subbaiya Chettiar, AIR 1962 SC 1513.
- K.S. Vidyanadam v. Vairavan, (2003) 8 SCC 472.
Award Winning Article Is Written By: Mr.Vivek Raj Mishra
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