Material alteration and second appeal limits: adding marginal witnesses did not defeat specific performance or justify disturbing concurrent findings.

Insertion of additional marginal witnesses in an agreement of sale was held not to be a material alteration because it did not change the instrument's legal effect, rights, or liabilities, and did not affect enforceability. The Court also stated that concurrent findings in second appeal may be disturbed only on a substantial question of law; where the lower courts had accepted the agreement and decreed specific performance, interference without a genuine legal error was unjustified. The challenge based on alleged interpolation therefore failed, and the decrees for specific performance were restored.

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Issues: (i) Whether the insertion of additional marginal witnesses in the agreement of sale amounted to a material alteration rendering the document unenforceable. (ii) Whether the High Court was justified in disturbing concurrent findings in second appeal on the basis of that alteration.

Issue (i): Whether the insertion of additional marginal witnesses in the agreement of sale amounted to a material alteration rendering the document unenforceable.

Analysis: A material alteration is one that changes the rights, liabilities, or legal effect of the instrument, or otherwise prejudices the party bound by it. An alteration that does not affect the legal effect of the deed, but only adds what is legally unnecessary or merely evidentiary, is not material. The agreement of sale did not require marginal witnesses for validity, and the addition of witnesses did not alter the substance of the bargain or the enforceability of the agreement.

Conclusion: The alteration was not material and did not invalidate the agreement or prevent its enforcement.

Issue (ii): Whether the High Court was justified in disturbing concurrent findings in second appeal on the basis of that alteration.

Analysis: In second appeal, interference with concurrent findings is permissible only on a substantial question of law. The courts below had concurrently accepted the agreement and decreed specific performance. The High Court upset those findings on a ground not properly arising from the memorandum of appeal and without demonstrating any legal error in the concurrent conclusions.

Conclusion: The High Court was not justified in interfering with the concurrent findings, and its decision could not stand.

Final Conclusion: The concurrent decrees in favour of specific performance were restored, and the challenge based on alleged interpolation in the agreement failed.

Ratio Decidendi: An alteration in an instrument is material only if it changes the instrument's legal effect or prejudices the party bound by it, and concurrent findings cannot be disturbed in second appeal without a genuine substantial question of law.

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