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2004 (1) TMI 372

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....ered into an agreement to sell the said property with one Raja Mallo on 29-7-1980. There is no dispute between the parties about an agreement to sell having been executed by Sangeeta Chowdhury in favour of Raja Mallo. The dispute, however, is that according to the appellant, the agreement was for a consideration of rupees five lacs out of which rupees one lac was received by her from Raja Mallo by way of earnest money while according to the respondents, the agreement was for a sum of Rs. one lac and the entire consideration was paid by Raja Mallo to Sangeeta Chowdhury. Neither party has produced the original agreement on record. According to Sangeeta Chowdhury after paying Rs. one lac as earnest money in pursuance of the said agreement Raja Mallo disappeared and did not perform the rest of the agreement. She forfeited the earnest money and she continues to be the owner of the property. According to the respondent Raja Mallo paid the entire consideration of Rs. one lac in pursuance of the agreement to Sangeeta Chowdhury and he further entered into a construction agreement with one Biswajeet Ghosh on 27-2-1987. 2. There was a firm Sanchaita Investments which had accepted large num....

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....e observations both sets of objections stood disposed of. 3. From the above order it follows that the objections of appellant Sangeeta Chowdhury to attachment of her property by the Commissioner, Sanchaita Investments were never considered and decided on merits. If proper Vakalatnama was not filed the objections were to be treated as dismissed on the ground of being filed without authority and if a proper Vakalatnama was filed, her objections would still stand disposed of on the basis of offer of deposit of Rs. 4,50,000 (Rupees four lacs fifty thousand only) by Biswajeet Ghosh. The question of title to property was left open. Sanchaita Investments got a sum of Rs. 4,50,000 (Rupees four lacs fifty thousand only), the sum deposited by Biswajeet Ghosh as a condition for lifting of attachment of the property. It appears that thereafter Biswajeet Ghosh moved an application asserting his title to the property before the Bench of the Calcutta High Court dealing with matters relating to Sanchaita Investments. The said application was disposed of without notice to the appellant by an order dated 26th July, 1991 passed by the Division Bench of the High Court. The said order records that s....

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....igh Court making a prayer that the Commissioner of Sanchaita Investments be directed to execute a deed of conveyance with respect to the suit property in his favour. On 7th July, 1993, the High Court without giving any notice to the appellant Sangeeta Chowdhury passed an order directing the Commissioner of Sanchaita Investments to execute a Conveyance Deed with respect to the suit property in favour of Biswajeet Ghosh. In pursuance of the said order a Deed of Conveyance was executed by the Commissioner in favour of M/s. Veekayan Properties, a nominee of Biswajeet Ghosh on 22nd July, 1993. Sangeeta Chowdhury moved an application on 10th December, 1993 for recall of the order dated 7th July, 1993. The said application of Sangeeta Chowdhury was dismissed by the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court on 20th September, 1996. The present appeal is directed against the said order of the High Court. 6. We have heard learned counsel for the parties at length. The entire thrust of the arguments on behalf of appellant is that she has been condemned unheard. Her objections to attachment of her property were dismissed on technical grounds without going into merits. With the dismissal of ....

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....had purchased the property vide a Registered Deed of Conveyance dated 28th November, 1969 from one Pritam Singh. Again it is not in dispute that she entered into an agreement to sell with respect to the said property with one Raja Mallo. According to appellant-Sangeeta Chowdhury the consideration under the agreement to sell was rupees five lakhs out of which she was received rupees one lac as earnest money from Raja Mallo whereas according to respondents the consideration under the agreement was rupees one lac and the entire amount was paid by Raja Mallo to Sangeeta Chowdhury and she gave possession of the property to Raja Mallo. Sangeeta Chowdhury denies having handed over possession of the property to Raja Mallo. Neither party has produced the original agreement to sell on record. During the course of hearing before this Court, both sides asserted that they were in possession of their version of the original agreement. Which agreement is correct and genuine can be decided only on the basis of evidence which may be produced by respective parties. We have no basis to uphold or reject either of the agreements set up by the parties. According to Sangeeta Chowdhury, Raja Mallo failed ....

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....If the total consideration under the agreement was rupees one lac, she received the entire consideration. If it was rupees five lakhs, she only received rupees one lac and balance amount was never paid to her. Further the case of Sangeeta Chowdhury is that the agreement was abandoned and Rs. 1 lac which was paid by way of earnest money was forfeited. In our view the High Court could not ignore the stand of Sangeeta Chowdhury. It had to consider the stand of both parties and thereafter form a view about the correctness of either party's stand. (2)Similarly, the High Court was wrong in accepting that Sangeeta Chowdhury had delivered possession of the property to Raja Mallo in pursuance of the agreement to sell. The parties were at variance on the question of delivery of possession of the property and the issue could be resolved only after due consideration of the material on record in this behalf, which was not done by the High Court. (3)The Commissioner Sanchaita Investments attached the suit pro-perty and issued an advertisement on 3rd January, 1989 inviting objections to attachment. The order of this court dated 27th September, 1983 which authorized the Commissioner to attac....

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....on of the objections of Sangeeta Chowdhury to attachment of property on these two grounds was uncalled for and contrary to record. The High Court in its impugned order has proceeded on a totally incorrect basis that Tarun Kanti Chowdhury failed to meet these two grounds and therefore the objections were rightly rejected. The High Court had been observing in its various orders that the question of title to the property was to be independently gone into but the same was side tracked in the above manner. (5)The impugned order shows that the Special Bench of the High Court was looking after the affairs of Sanchaita Investments and was really concerned with securing money in order to meet the demands of the depositors. Therefore, the Bench was impressed by the fact that Biswajeet Ghosh had offered to deposit Rs. 4.5 lacs with the commission, Sanchaita Investments which really led the Bench to give the property to Biswajeet Ghosh or his nominee by way of a Conveyance Deed without considering the basic question as to whether Sanchaita Investments had title to the property before it could pass the title to a third party. If Sanchaita Investments had no title to the property how could....