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Showing contexts for: specific performance possession in Pantaloon Retail India Ltd vs Dlf Limited & Ors on 25 September, 2008Matching Fragments
"Section 22 enacts a rule of pleading. The Legislature thought it will be useful to introduce a rule that in order to avoid multiplicity of proceedings the plaintiff may claim a decree for possession in a suit for specific performance, even though strictly speaking, right to possession accrues only when suit for specific performance is decreed. The Legislature has now made a statutory provision enabling the plaintiff to ask for possession in the suit for specific performance and empowering the court to provide the decree itself that upon payment by the plaintiff of the consideration money within the given time, the defendant should execute the deed and put the plaintiff in possession.
19. One can possibly argue that there is some conflict of opinion in the aforesaid two Division Bench judgments. But for our purposes it is not necessary to go further. In K.G. Ringshia (supra), admittedly suit filed was for declaration simplicitor and that too, to the effect that there was a subsisting contract. In Vipul Infrastructure (supra), the Court proceeded on the basis that relief for possession was inherently claimed. We have already noted in the beginning that the legal principle which was accepted by both the parties, is that, if the suit is for specific performance simplicitor, relief can be obtained through the personal obedience of the defendant directing him to execute the sale deed (or lease deed as the case may be) as per the proviso to Section 16, such a suit can be filed in a particular court if it is shown that the defendant actually and voluntarily resides and carries on business or works for gain within the local limits of that Court even if the property is situated outside the local limits of that Court. On the other hand, if, along with the suit for specific performance, possession is also claimed, the suit has to be filed in a court where the immovable property is located inasmuch as, in that case relief cannot be obtained ordinarily through the personal obedience of the defendant. Reason is simple. For claiming relief of possession, even while executing the decree, one may have to approach FAO (OS) No.108/2008 25 of 25 the Court where the immovable property is situate by seeking transfer of that decree and thus, proviso would not apply in such a situation.
"In Balmukand v. Veer Chand1 the decree for specific performance of a contract of sale was silent as to the relief of delivery of possession even though such relief was claimed in the suit. It was held by the Allahabad High Court that the executing court was still competent to deliver possession. It was further held that it was not necessary in a suit for specific performance either to separately claim possession nor was it necessary for the court to pass a decree for possession. A decree for specific performance of a contract includes everything incidental to be done by one party or another to complete the sale transaction, the rights and obligations of the parties in such a matter being governed by section 55 of the Transfer of Property Act. In Janardan Kishore v. Girdhari Lal(2) the Patna High Court took the view that the relief of possession is inherent in a relief for specific performance of contract for lease, and the court executing a decree for specific performance of such a contract can grant possession of the property to the decree-holder even though the decree did not provide for delivery of possession. In Subodh Kumar v. Hiramoni Dasi (1) the Calcutta High Court took a similar view that the right to recover possession springs out of the contract which was being specifically enforced and not as a result of the execution and completion of the conveyance, and as such the judgment-debtor was bound to deliver possession to the decree-holder.
In Mohammed Ali Abdul Chanimomin v. Bishemi Kom Abdulla Saheb Momin Anr. (2) the Mysore High Court observed that the liability to deliver possession for specific performance was necessarily implied in a decree for specific performance directing the defendant to execute a sale deed on the principle of clause (f) of sub-section (1) of section 55 of the Transfer of Property Act, according to which the liability to deliver possession arises immediately upon execution of the sale deed unless by agreement the date of delivery of possession is postponed.