Reconveyance agreement and specific performance: authorised agency, genuine understanding, and pendente lite assignment did not defeat relief.

A written understanding for reconveyance, if proved genuine and executed through an authorised agent, is treated as a binding contractual obligation on the principals. The text further notes that such an arrangement can support specific performance where the parties intended legal effect, and that delay or a later rise in property value does not by itself defeat relief. It also states that a pendente lite assignment of the claimant's rights does not automatically bar specific performance; refusal is justified only where equitable considerations, such as champerty or lack of clean hands, clearly require it. On these principles, reconveyance was decreed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the document recording the understanding for reconveyance was genuine and binding; (ii) Whether the signatory was acting as agent of the defendants, and whether the understanding bound both defendants; (iii) Whether the agreement for reconveyance was enforceable by specific performance despite lapse of time and assignment of the right during pendency of the litigation.

Issue (i): Whether the document recording the understanding for reconveyance was genuine and binding

Analysis: The document was accepted as a real record of the arrangement. Its genuineness was supported by the surrounding circumstances, including the later resale of one property on terms broadly consistent with the recorded understanding and a contemporaneous letter referring to the arrangement. The absence of an express recital in the sale deeds did not by itself discredit the document.

Conclusion: The document was held to be genuine and effective.

Issue (ii): Whether the signatory was acting as agent of the defendants, and whether the understanding bound both defendants

Analysis: The evidence was treated as sufficient to show that the signatory who executed the document acted for the defendants. The Court attached importance to the trial court's appreciation of evidence and concluded that the understanding recorded in the document was entered into through an authorised agent. On that basis, the arrangement was held binding on the principals, including the defendant in whose name the properties stood.

Conclusion: The signatory was held to be the defendants' agent, and the understanding was binding on both defendants.

Issue (iii): Whether the agreement for reconveyance was enforceable by specific performance despite lapse of time and assignment of the right during pendency of the litigation

Analysis: The Court held that the recorded understanding was intended to create legal obligations and therefore constituted an enforceable contract capable of specific performance. In exercising discretion under Section 20 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, the Court rejected the contention that mere passage of time and rise in property prices should defeat relief. It also held that a pendente lite assignment does not by itself bar specific performance, and that refusal would be justified only where the assignment is truly champertous. On the facts, the assignees had come before the Court transparently and the defendants had not acted with clean hands.

Conclusion: Specific performance was held to be maintainable and the discretionary relief was granted.

Final Conclusion: The decree of the appellate court was set aside, the trial court's decree for reconveyance was restored, and the suit for specific performance was decreed.

Ratio Decidendi: A written understanding for reconveyance, executed through authorised agents and intended to be acted upon, creates an enforceable contractual obligation; in a proper case, specific performance may still be granted despite delay, increase in property value, or pendente lite assignment, unless equitable considerations clearly justify refusal.

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