TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1989 (12) TMI 357
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....e exclusively by the Revenue Court. Accordingly, the High Court directed the return of the plaint for presentation to the proper Court. We have heard Dr. Shankar Ghosh, learned Senior Advocate for the appellant and Shri R.K. Jain, learned Senior Advocate for the respondents. Special leave is granted. The appeal is taken up for final hearing, heard and disposed of by this judgment. 2. Appellant's case before the trial Court was that she, as the only daughter of Nawab Nurul Rahman Khan inherited his estate; that as she was paradanashin she on the representation of respondents 1 to 3 appointed them as her agents to manage the estate under an instrument of agency dated 17-4-1969; that the said document drafted in Hindi, a language not known to appellant, was later discovered by her to have contained an unauthorised clause empowering sale of the properties; and that taking advantage of appellant's absence from India, the said agents had entered into fraudulent and collusive sales respecting the properties in favour of the other respondents, who are their close relatives and confidants. Appellant sought the cancellation of the sale deeds, delivery of possession and renditio....
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....at such exclusion must either be explicitly expressed or clearly implied. The provisions of law which seek to oust the jurisdiction of Civil Court needs to be strictly construed. Section 331 of the Act has been the subject of series of pronouncements of the High Court as to the circumstances and the nature of the suits in which its exclusionary effect operates. Distinction was sought to be drawn between the class of cases where the binding effect of a deed had had to be got rid of by an appropriate adjudication on the one hand and the class of cases in which a transaction could be said to be void in law where what the law holds to be void, there is nothing to cancel or set aside on the other. In the former case, it was held, a suit was cognisable by the Civil Court while in the latter, it was not, it being open to the statutory authority to take note of the legal incidents of what was non-est. 4. In the instant case, the High Court has construed, in our opinion not quite correctly, appellant's pleadings to amount to a plea of nullity of the sales and has held that the prayer for cancellation of the sale deeds was 'simply illusory' and that such a relief was neither n....
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....a mistake as to its nature and contents, he could say that it was not his deed at all. In its modern application, the doctrine has been extended to cases other than those of illiteracy and to other contracts in writing. In most of the cases in which this defence was pleaded the mistake was induced by fraud; but that was not, perhaps, a necessary factor, as the transaction is "invalid not merely on the ground of fraud, where fraud exists, but on the ground that the mind of the signor did not accompany the signature; in other words, that he never intended to sign, and therefore in contemplation of law never did sign, the contract to which his name is appended". Authorities drew a distinction between fraudulent misrepresentation as to the character of the document and fraudulent misrepresentation as to the contents thereof. It was held that the defence was available only if the mistake was as to the very nature or character of the transaction. In Foster v. Mackinnon (1869) LR 4 CP 704. Mackinnon, the defendant was induced to endorse a bill of exchange on the false representation that it was a guarantee similar to one he had signed on a previous occasion. He was held not liable w....
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....cter of the document and the contents of the document was considered unsatisfactory. The distinction based on the character, and con-tents of a document is not without its difficulties in its practical application; for, inconceivable cases the 'Character' of the document may itself depend on its contents. The difficulty is to be resolved on a case by case basis on the facts of each case and not by appealing to any principle of general validity applicable to all cases. Chitty on Contracts (General Principles, 25th Edition, Para 343) has this observation to make on Saunders' decision: ...It was stressed that the defence of non est factum was not lightly to be allowed where a person of full age and capacity had signed a written document embodying contractual terms. But it was nevertheless held that in exceptional circumstances the plea was available so long as the person signing the document had made a fundamental mistake as to the character or effect of the document. Their Lordships appear to have concentrated on the disparity between the effect of the document actually signed, and the document as it was believed to be (rather than on the natur....