Both Readiness And Willingness To Perform Contract Are Essential Ingredients For Claiming Relief Of Specific Performance: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court clarified that there is a fine distinction between readiness and willingness to perform the contract and both of these ingredients are necessary for the relief of specific performance.
The Petition before the Apex Court arose from a judgment of the Karnataka High Court by which the Regular First Appeal filed by the original defendant came to be allowed thereby quashing and setting aside the judgment and decree of specific performance passed by the trial court in favour of the petitioner.
The Division Bench comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan asserted, “The law is well settled. The plaintiff is obliged not only to make specific statement and averments in the plaint but is also obliged to adduce necessary oral and documentary evidence to show the availability of funds to make payment in terms of the contract in time.”
AOR Vaijayanthi Girish represented the Petitioner while Advocate Manjunath Meled represented the Respondent.
The Petitioner-original plaintiff, in this case, instituted a suit for specific performance of contract based on agreement of sale. The total sale consideration fixed in the Agreement of sale was Rs 30 lakh. An amount of Rs 12.5 lakh came to be paid by the petitioner towards earnest money at the time of execution of the agreement of sale.
It was the petitioner’s case that he was always ready and willing to perform his part of the contract but it was the respondent herein original-defendant who was not inclined to execute the sale deed despite accepting the earnest money. The petitioner’s suit for specific performance was allowed. However, the High Court allowed the appeal of the defendant on the issue of readiness and willingness on the part of the plaintiff in performing his part of the contract.
At the outset, the Bench clarified that Section 16(c) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 (prior to amendment w.e.f. 1.10.2018) bars the relief of the specific performance of a contract in favour of a person who fails to aver readiness and willingness to perform his part of the contract.
The Bench further observed that while readiness means the capacity of the plaintiff to perform the contract which would include his financial position, willingness relates to the conduct of the plaintiff. It was also noticed that the High Court in first appeal upon appreciation of the evidence on record both oral and documentary had arrived at the conclusion that the plaintiff had failed to establish that he was always ready and willing to perform his part of the contract.
“This being a finding of fact and cannot be termed as perverse, there is no good reason for us to interfere with the impugned judgment”, the Bench held while dismissing the Petition.
Cause Title: R. Shama Naik v. G. Srinivasiah [Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 927]
Appearance:
Petitioner: AOR Vaijayanthi Girish, Advocate Girish Ananthamurthy
Respondent: Advocates Manjunath Meled, Sandeep Sharma, Vijayalaxmi Udapudi, AOR Ganesh Kumar R.
