Alternative specific performance is not maintainable where a contract is attacked as void or voidable without readiness and willingness.

A plaintiff who challenges a contract as void or voidable on the ground of undue influence or coercion cannot, in the same suit, seek specific performance of that very contract unless the statute expressly permits such an alternative claim. Order 7 Rule 7 CPC allows alternative reliefs only where each relief is legally maintainable, and the Specific Relief Act provisions on rescission do not authorise the converse remedy of specific performance when the contract is attacked as invalid. The absence of an averment of continuous readiness and willingness also defeats specific performance. An erroneous trial court order granting such relief raises a jurisdictional error and may be corrected in revision under Section 115 CPC.

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Issues: (i) whether a plaintiff who seeks a declaration that a contract is void and inoperative on the ground of undue influence or coercion can, in the same suit, alternatively seek specific performance of the same contract; and (ii) whether the High Court could interfere in revision with the trial court's order allowing such an alternative prayer.

Issue (i): whether a plaintiff who seeks a declaration that a contract is void and inoperative on the ground of undue influence or coercion can, in the same suit, alternatively seek specific performance of the same contract.

Analysis: Order 7 Rule 7 of the Code of Civil Procedure permits alternative reliefs, but only where each relief is legally maintainable. Under Section 37 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877, a plaintiff suing for specific performance may alternatively seek rescission if specific enforcement fails; the converse is not provided. Section 35 of the same Act deals with rescission, but contains no provision enabling a plaintiff who attacks a contract as void or voidable to claim specific performance in the alternative. The plaintiff also failed to plead continuous readiness and willingness to perform his part of the contract, which is indispensable in a suit for specific performance.

Conclusion: such an alternative prayer for specific performance was not maintainable, and the plaintiff had no cause of action for that relief.

Issue (ii): whether the High Court could interfere in revision with the trial court's order allowing such an alternative prayer.

Analysis: the trial court's view that the alternative relief of specific performance was available involved an error of law affecting the court's jurisdiction to grant that relief. A finding which confers jurisdiction where none exists amounts to material irregularity or illegality within Section 115(c) of the Code of Civil Procedure, and is therefore revisable.

Conclusion: the High Court was competent to interfere in revision.

Final Conclusion: the appeal failed in substance, and the challenge to the High Court's revisional order did not succeed.

Ratio Decidendi: a plaintiff who assails a contract as void or voidable cannot, in the same suit, seek specific performance of that contract in the alternative unless the statute authorises such a claim and the plaint contains the necessary averment of readiness and willingness to perform.

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