Rajput Road Lines & Anr. vs Devendra Kumar Pranami.

The question before this Court is that the lease deed in question which is said to be for agricultural purposes falls within the purview of Section 117 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (in short "the T.P. Act ")

In brief the facts of the case are that the petitioners/plaintiffs had filed a civil suit for declaration of title and injunction in respect of agricultural land admeasuring 50.86 acres bearing Khasra No.109/2&3 situated at village Sultanpur, District Raisen. The case of the petitioners is that the father of petitioners/plaintiffs No.1, 5 and 6 were in possession of the land of respondent No.1/defendant since 1963 and were performing the agricultural activities. On 5.4.1976 the father of defendant/respondent No.1, namely, Late Shri Usman Gani Patrawala executed a permanent lease deed of the aforesaid agricultural land in favour of the petitioners to perform agricultural activities and owing to a dispute between the parties subsequently a Civil Suit No.10A/2014 was filed for declaration and injunction by the petitioners against the respondents wherein written statement has also been filed by the respondents/defendants.

It is further the case of the petitioners that during the course of recording of evidence, an oral objection was raised regarding the admissibility of the lease deed on the ground that the same is not registered in accordance with the provisions of the Registration Act, 1908 (In short ''the Registration Act ''). To this objection, the contention of the petitioners was that under Section 117 of the T.P. Act since the lease deed was for agricultural purposes only, it was not required to be registered.

The learned Judge of the Trial Court vide its order dated 9.12.2015 by referring to Sections 107 and 117 of the T.P. Act as also referring to Section 17(1)(d) of the Registration Act has held that since the lease was for more than one year and the consideration of which was also more than Rs.100/-, hence the same is not admissible in evidence. A review petition filed in this behalf and registered as MJC No.02/16 also came to be dismissed on 8.2.2016. Both these orders are under challenge in this petition.

The learned counsel for the petitioners has submitted that the learned Trial Court has erred in correctly interpreting the provisions of Section 117 of the T.P. Act and has drawn a wrong inference and hence the order impugned is liable to be set aside.

On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents/defendants submitted that no illegality has been committed by the learned Judge of the Trial Court and the order has been passed in accordance with law. The learned counsel has further submitted that against the aforesaid order a review petition was also filed but the same has been dismissed and as such there is no substance in the petition and the same is liable to be dismissed.

Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

For the proper consideration of question involved in the case that whether Section 117 of the T.P. Act is applicable in the present case or not; or that whether the lease deed which was said to be for agricultural purposes can be said to be admissible in evidence despite being unregistered the following Sections of the T.P. Act as well as the Registration Act are being reproduced hereunder :

Transfer of Property Act, 1808.

Leases how made. - A lease of immoveable property from year to year, or for any term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent, can be made only by a registered instrument.

[All other leases of immoveable property may be made either by a registered instrument or by oral agreement accompanied by delivery of possession.

[Where a lease of immoveable property is made by a registered instrument, such instrument or, where there are more instruments than one, each such instrument shall be executed by both the lessor and the lessee:]

Provided that the State Government may 4[***] from time to time, by notification in the Official Gazette, direct that leases of immoveable property, other than leases from year to year, or for any term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent, or any class of such leases, may be made by unregistered instrument or by oral agreement without delivery of possession.]

Exemption of leases for agricultural purposes.- None of the provisions of this Chapter apply to leases for agricultural purposes, except in so far as the State Government 1[***] may by notification published in the Official Gazette declare all or any of such provisions to be so applicable 1[in the case of all or any of such leases], together with, or subject to, those of the local law, if any, for the time being in force.

Such notification shall not take effect until the expiry of six months from the date of its publication.

Documents of which registration is compulsory.- (I) The following documents shall be registered, if the property to which they relate is situate in a district in which, and if they have been executed on or after the date on which, Act XVI of 1864, or the Indian Registration Act, 1866 (20 of 1866), or the Indian Registration Act, 1871 (8 of 1871), or the Indian Registration Act, 1877 (3 of 1877), or this Act came or comes into force, namely,-

(a) xxx xxx xxx

(b) xxx xxx xxx

(c) xxx xxx xxx

(d) Leases of immovable property from year to year, or for any term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent;

From the record, it appears that the learned Judge of the Trial Court has made following observations in respect of the lease deed in question as under :-

"VERNACULAR MATTER OMITTED"

The learned counsel for the petitioner has drawn my attention to the fact that the learned Trial Court has observed the purpose of lease as "carrying on daily and Agricultural businesses and breeding cattle and such other acts". It appears that being aggrieved by the aforesaid observation made by the Court that the lease was also for "and such other acts", the petitioner preferred a review petition but the same has been dismissed without dealing with the objection/submission made by the petitioner. In the review order, it is also mentioned that the provisions of the M.P. Land Revenue Code, 1959 would not be applicable to the facts of the present case as Section 2 (b)(v) was inserted in the year 2003 whereas the lease deed was executed in the year 1976.

A bare perusal of the lease deed reveals that there was no such words "and such other acts" in the lease deed in question. Relevant paragraph of the same is reproduced as under :-

"AND WHEREAS the Lessees have requested the Lessor to grant him the Lessees lease of the said demised premises for the purpose of carrying on dairy and Agricultural business and breeding cattle which the Lessor has agreed to do on the terms and conditions as hereinafter appearing:"

Thus there was no question of dismissing the application filed by the petitioners for review of its earlier order, which was apparently mistake on the face of the record and should have been considered by the learned Trial Court.

Now coming to the question of admissibility of the lease deed, which is for the agricultural purposes, a bare perusal of Section 117 of the T.P. Act clearly reveals that it excludes the operation of other Sections 105 to 107, which are provided in Chapter V - ''Of Leases of Immovable Property'' of T.P. Act and the language used in Section 117 is also clear and unambiguous. Section 117 of the T.P.

Act begins with a non obstante clause relating to other sections of this Chapter V. Thus, even though Section 107 provides that all other leases of immoveable property may be made either by a registered instrument or by oral agreement accompanied by delivery of possession and also that a lease of immoveable property shall be for year to year, or for any term exceeding one year or reserving a yearly rent, can be made only by a registered instrument. The aforesaid provisions would not be applicable in case of lease for agricultural purposes. Learned counsel for the respondents could not point out that the State had issued any notification in this regard for exclusion of any of the provisions of this Act in the case of all or any other such leases. In the circumstances, the finding arrived at by the Trial Court that the lease is unregistered and is not admissible in evidence is liable to be set aside.

In the result, the petition is allowed, the impugned order dated 9.12.2015 (Annexure P/5) and order dated 8.2.2016 (Annexure P/8) are quashed and it is held that the lease deed, which is unregistered but is for agricultural purposes is admissible in evidence. Since the further proceedings of the civil suit have already been stayed by the interim order dated 3.3.2016 passed by this Court, the learned Judge of the Civil Court is directed to proceed further in the case expeditiously and conclude the civil suit preferably within a period of six months from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order.