Calcutta High Court
Helaluddin Mia'S Wife Innatunnessa ... vs Janaki Nath Sircar on 26 February, 1917
Equivalent citations: 40IND. CAS.490, AIR 1918 CALCUTTA 827
JUDGMENT
1. This appeal arises out of a suit for specific performance of a contract for sale alleged to have been entered into by the defendant No. 5 as the guardian of defendants Nos. 2 to 4, who were minors, against the defendants Nos. 2 to 5, and also against defendant No. 1 who had purchased the property from the said defendants. The Court of First Instance dismissed the claim for specific performance of the contract but directed a refund of the earnest money against defendant No. 5. On appeal, the learned Subordinate Judge, without entering into the merits of the case, dismissed the appeal on the ground that the suit for specific performance of the contract against the minors was not maintainable on the authority of the oase of Mir Sarwarjan v. Fakhruddin Mahomed 13 Ind. Cas. 33l : 16 C.W.N. 74 : (1912) M.W.N. 2 : 9 A.L.J. 33 : 15 C.L.J. 69 : 11 M.L.T. 8 : 21 M.L.J.1156 : 39 I.A. l : 14 Bom. L.R. 5 : 39 C. 232. That case, however, has no application to the facts of the present case. There the manager of an infant's estate entered into an agreement to purchase certain property on behalf of the minor, and their Lordships held "that it is not within the competence of a manager of a minor's estate or within the competence of a guardian of a minor to bind the minor or the minor's estate by a contract for the purchase of immoveable property" and that "as the minor was not bound by the contract there was no mutuality" and he could not on attaining his majority obtain specific performance of the contract. In the present case, the guardian of the minors, who had been appointed as such under the Guardians and Wards Act, entered into an agreement to sell the property with the sanction of the District Judge. He was, therefore, quite competent to sell the property. It is true that the Court, when authorizing the guardian to sell the property, directed him to sell it for Rs. 1,000. That obviously means that the guardian was to sell the property for not less than Rs. 1,000; and the guardian entered into the agreement to sell the property to the plaintiff for Rs. 1,300, which was clearly for the benefit of the minors. The contract, therefore, under these circumstances, was a valid one and enforceable against the minors. That being so, the decree of the lower Appellate Court must be set aside.
2. We accordingly set aside the decree of the lower Appellate Court and send the case back to that Court for a re-hearing of the appeal on the merits. Costs of this appeal will abide the result.