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Issues: (i) Whether a registered sale deed with admitted execution and recital of consideration could be displaced by oral evidence to treat the transaction as a sham or collateral security for a money-lending arrangement; (ii) Whether the provisions of the Maharashtra Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act could be invoked in the suit in the absence of a proper foundation in pleadings and notwithstanding the jurisdictional bar on the civil court.
Issue (i): Whether a registered sale deed with admitted execution and recital of consideration could be displaced by oral evidence to treat the transaction as a sham or collateral security for a money-lending arrangement.
Analysis: A registered conveyance of immovable property, once its execution is admitted, carries a strong presumption of genuineness and of transfer of title. Where the instrument expressly records payment or receipt of consideration and the executant admits execution, the burden shifts to the party alleging a different nature of transaction to prove that the document was never intended to operate as a sale. Oral evidence cannot override clear recitals in a registered instrument unless the alleged contrary intention is established by reliable proof. On the facts, the finding that the sale deed was merely collateral security was unsupported, and the oral version could not displace the registered document.
Conclusion: The challenge to the sale deed was not sustainable, and the plaintiff's title under the registered conveyance stood established.
Issue (ii): Whether the provisions of the Maharashtra Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act could be invoked in the suit in the absence of a proper foundation in pleadings and notwithstanding the jurisdictional bar on the civil court.
Analysis: The applicability of the Fragmentation Act depended on pleaded facts showing that the suit involved issues required to be determined by the statutory authority. A vague reference in the written statement was insufficient to found such a defence, and a defendant could not, in the guise of that plea, raise a claim against a co-defendant or convert the controversy into a counter-claim. The civil court's jurisdiction could not be displaced without a proper statutory basis, and the inter se validity of the earlier sale deed between the defendants was outside the scope of the suit as framed. The High Court erred in treating the earlier transaction as void under the Fragmentation Act and in using that as the foundation to negate the plaintiff's sale deed.
Conclusion: The Fragmentation Act defence was not available in the suit, and the civil court could not have rested its decision on that basis.
Final Conclusion: The judgment of the High Court was set aside, the decree of the first appellate court was restored, and the suit for possession on the strength of title stood decreed in favour of the plaintiff.
Ratio Decidendi: An admitted and registered sale deed evidencing transfer of immovable property cannot be displaced by oral assertions of a collateral arrangement unless the contrary intention is proved, and a statutory defence affecting civil jurisdiction must rest on proper pleadings and a legally maintainable foundation.
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