Supreme Court Restores 1979 Specific Performance Sale, Rejects ₹15 Lakh Refund as Substitute

The Supreme Court has restored a decades-old decree for specific performance, holding that a sale already completed through execution of a court-ordered sale deed and delivery of possession cannot later be replaced with an enhanced monetary refund merely to balance equities.

Background

The dispute concerned an agreement executed in June 1975 for sale of about five bighas of agricultural land near Agra for ₹20,000. The trial court decreed specific performance in February 1979, after which the sale deed was executed through the court and the purchaser remained in possession.

Legal issue and Court's reasoning

The first appellate court reversed the decree. Although the Allahabad High Court later accepted important findings supporting the purchaser, it declined to restore the sale and instead directed the seller to pay ₹15 lakh with interest because several decades had passed.

The Supreme Court found that approach unsustainable. It emphasised that the transaction was no longer merely executory: ownership and possession had already passed pursuant to the decree. In those circumstances, lapse of time could not itself justify replacing the completed conveyance with money.

Result and practical consequence

The Bench said equity operated in favour of the purchaser, who had parted with the agreed consideration more than four decades earlier and had held the property since 1979.

The appeal was allowed, the trial court decree restored and the purchaser's possession protected. The ₹15 lakh deposited pursuant to the High Court judgment must be returned to the seller with accrued interest within one month.