Unregistered agreement to sell remains admissible to prove a contract for specific performance under the Registration Act proviso.

An unregistered agreement to sell is not barred from evidence when it is tendered only as proof of the contract in a suit for specific performance. Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908 prohibits an unregistered document required to be registered from affecting immovable property or proving the transaction, but its proviso permits use of such a document to establish the contract itself for specific enforcement. On that basis, refusal of relief solely because the agreement was unregistered was contrary to the proviso, and specific performance could be decreed.

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Issues: Whether an unregistered agreement to sell can be received in evidence and relied upon to decree specific performance.

Analysis: Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908 bars an unregistered document required to be registered from affecting immovable property or being received as evidence of the transaction, but its proviso permits such a document to be received as evidence of a contract in a suit for specific performance. The legal position applied was that an unregistered sale agreement, when tendered not as proof of completed transfer but as proof of the contract itself, is admissible for the limited purpose of seeking specific performance. The trial court's refusal to grant relief solely because the agreement was unregistered was therefore contrary to the settled interpretation of the proviso.

Conclusion: The unregistered agreement was admissible for the purpose of enforcing the contract, and the decree for specific performance was liable to be granted in favour of the appellant.

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