Kaki Subbanadri vs Muthu Rangayya

According to Vairananda Nadar v. Miya Kan Rowther 21 M. 109 which was not referred to in argument, the effect of the closing words of

Section 4 of the Transfer of Property Act is to require the Court to read Section 107 of that Act along with Section 17(d) of the Registration Act;

and consequently to hold, that all instruments referred to in Section 107, Transfer of Property Act, are compulsorily registrable in all cases to which

that Act is applicable.

We are to read Section 107 as supplemental to Section 17(d) of the Registration Act: that is to say, we are to add to the first sentence of

Section 17(d) words to the following effect: And all instruments referred to in Section 107, Transfer of Property Act, and Section 4"" as is pointed

out in Makhan Lal Pal v. Banku Behari Ghose 19 C. 623. It is not altogether clear, but it seems to us that, so far as we are concerned with it in this

case, it can not mean more than this. It can mean that an instrument which is not referred to in Section 107, Transfer of Property Act, becomes

compulsorily registrable because it falls within the definition of a lease in Section 3 of the Registration Act. Now Exhibit A is an undertaking by the

tenant to occupy on certain conditions and is a lease within the definition in Section 3 of the Registration Act. But it is not a lease which by Section

17(d) of the Registration Act read by itself is required to be registered. And it is not an instrument referred to in Section 107, Transfer of Property

Act; that section refers to instruments by which a lease can be made and the case of Turf Sahib v. Isuf Sahib 2 M.L.T. 270 by which we are

bound, decided that a document like Exhibit A. is not an instrument by which a lease can be made.

Exhibit A, therefore, is not one of the instruments to which Section 107, Transfer of Property Act, refers and so is not compulsorily registrable;

it follows that it is not affected by Section 49 of the Registration Act and is admissible in evidence. Now taking it that the plaintiff''s case is that

there was a letting by oral agreement accompanied by delivery then mere existence of Exhibit A does not, in our opinion, prevent him from proving

that case. We think it would be unreasonable to hold that, if the plaintiff when making his lease by oral agreement and delivery of possession

secures from the defendant written evidence of the terms of the agreement his case ceases to be a lease. But we need not go beyond Turf Sahib v.

Esuf Sahib 2 M.L.T. 270 for our decision. Exhibit A is not the document by which the lease is made, and, therefore, if the lease was made at all it

was made some other way: it is the transferor who makes the lease: he wrote nothing: he made the lease if there was in fact a lease by agreeing

orally with the defendant to allow him to hold on certain conditions. There is so far as we can see, nothing to prevent the giving in evidence of

Exhibit A in proof of the conditions. There is nothing in the Evidence Act to prevent the proof of an oral agreement, by documentary evidence.

We allow the appeal and, reversing the decree, remand the suit to the District Munsif for disposal according to law. Costs will abide the event.