Concurrent findings and security sale deeds: High Court review and title depend on evidence, admissions, and surrounding circumstances.

Under Section 100 CPC, interference with concurrent findings is justified where the lower courts have ignored material oral and documentary evidence and reached manifestly unreasonable conclusions; in that situation, the High Court may reappreciate the evidence. A deed described as a sale may nevertheless operate only as security for a loan where admissions, a reconveyance arrangement, and surrounding circumstances show that no absolute transfer was intended; mutation does not by itself confer title.

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Issues: (i) Whether the High Court could interfere in second appeal with the concurrent findings of the courts below under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908; (ii) Whether the sale deed executed on 01.12.1965 was a real sale conveying title or only a transaction by way of security for loan so as to leave title in the vendor.

Issue (i): Whether the High Court could interfere in second appeal with the concurrent findings of the courts below under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

Analysis: The findings of the trial court and the first appellate court were held to be vitiated by non-appreciation of oral and documentary evidence. The Court found that the first appellate court had not independently addressed the material issues and had disposed of the matter mechanically. In such circumstances, the High Court was justified in reappreciating the evidence and correcting findings that were manifestly unreasonable and unjust.

Conclusion: The High Court was entitled to interfere, and its reappreciation of evidence was proper.

Issue (ii): Whether the sale deed executed on 01.12.1965 was a real sale conveying title or only a transaction by way of security for loan so as to leave title in the vendor.

Analysis: The Court relied on the admissions of the vendee and her husband, the simultaneous agreement for reconveyance, and the surrounding circumstances showing that the property was dealt with as security for a loan. The Court held that mere mutation did not confer title, and that a transferee cannot acquire a better title than that possessed by the transferor. On these facts, the sale deed did not operate as an absolute conveyance.

Conclusion: The sale deed was only by way of security for loan and did not convey title to the vendee or the subsequent purchasers.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed because the High Court correctly restored the plaintiff's title and possession rights, and the dismissal of the suit by the courts below was set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a transfer is shown by admissions and surrounding circumstances to be only a security transaction with a reconveyance arrangement, it does not pass title, and a higher court may interfere with concurrent findings in second appeal when those findings are based on a manifestly unreasonable appreciation of evidence.

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