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4. The deed in question was a composition deed by which the debtors conveyed assigned and transferred to the appellants (therein called the trustees)(1) the lands, hereditaments and premises described in the 1st Schedule thereto, (2) the shares and other personal properties the particulars whereof were contained in the 2nd Schedule thereto, and (3) all other the property of the debtors and each of them except the property described in the 3rd Schedule thereto, upon trust for sale and conversion, the proceeds to be divided among the "creditors" (as therein defined) of the debtors as therein provided, and the surplus (if any) to be paid to the debtors. The deed contains powers and provisions commonly found in a composition deed which creates a trust of property for the benefit of creditors.

(c) non-testamentary instruments which acknowledge the receipt or payment of any consideration on account of the creation, declaration, assignment, limitation or extinction of any such right, title or interest; and
(d).. ..
(2) Nothing in clauses (b) and (c) of sub-section (I.) applies te(i) any composition deed ; or....

It will be observed that there is not, in terms, any direct provision enacting that no composition deed need be registered, or that no composition deed may be registered. There is in terms only a provision that nothing in Clauses (b) and (c) of Sub-section (I) applies to any composition deed. These words are, their Lordships think, open to two constructions, viz. : they might be construed as meaning (A) that all composition deeds are exempt from any requirement to be registered, or they might be construed as meaning (B) that all composition deeds are exempt from the requirement to be registered imposed by that Act ; in other words, that a composition deed is not required to be registered because it purports or operates to do any of the things enumerated in (b) or because it acknowledges the receipt or payment of a consideration on account of the matters enumerated in (c). Construction A would, in the case of composition deeds declaring trusts of immovable property, clash with Section 5 of the Trusts Act, 1882 ; construction B would not.

16. It was however urged that decisions of such long standing should not be departed from. No doubt an appellate tribunal does not lightly interfere with decisions of long standing, especially in cases where their reversal might jeopardise existing titles acquired on the faith of their correctness. Their Lordships, however, while assenting to this view in general, feel that this danger does not exist to any serious degree in the case of composition deeds. Composition deeds work themselves out and come to an end ; and the cases in which any one could be in a position to claim the immovable property comprised in an unregistered composition deed adversely to the debtor and. the trustees can only be of a very rare occurrence. In these circumstances their Lordships feel justified in overruling these decisions, the reasons for which they consider to be obviously wrong.

17. Their Lordships agree with the judgment of the High Court in the present case and with the construction of Sub-section (2)(i) of Section 17 of the Registration Act stated by them in the following passage :

It is true that Clause (2) of Section 17...distinctly provides that nothing in Clause (b) and it is only under Clause (b) that the document might require registration applies to any composition deed; but this does not mean that if a document requires registration under any other enactment, the exemption contained in Clause (2) would prevail against that other enactment. What the Registration Act provides is that a composition deed so far as it purports or operates to create declare assign limit or extinguish...any right title or interest...of the value of Rs. 100 and upwards to or in immovable property will not require registration; but it does not say that any composition deed if it purports to do or operates to do anything else-will not require registration either.