He bought land in 1979. 44 years later, the Supreme Court said — the High Court had no business deciding this.

The seller said the sale deed was fake. Then he said it was real but illegal. The Supreme Court asked: which is it?

In 1979, a man paid for three acres and twenty guntas of agricultural land in Maharashtra. He got a registered sale deed — a legal document proving ownership, registered with the government. The seller took the money, signed the papers, and then did something strange: he refused to leave the buyer alone.

For forty-four years, the buyer chased what he had already paid for. Three courts heard him. Twice he lost. Once he won. Then he lost again. And then, finally, the Supreme Court asked the one question no one had asked the seller: which of your two stories is true?

When the seller became the defendant

The buyer, deed in hand, found the seller repeatedly disturbing his possession. So he went to court. He filed a suit for possession — a legal claim asking the court to put him in control of the land he had bought.

The seller, now the second defendant, had two things to say. First: the sale deed was a sham document — a fake piece of paper that was never meant to transfer ownership. It was, he said, only collateral security for a loan he had taken. Second: even if the deed was real, it violated the Maharashtra Fragmentation Act — a law that prevents the division of agricultural land into pieces too small to farm viably.

The trial court — the Court of Joint Civil Judge, Junior Division, Chikhli — accepted the seller's arguments and dismissed the buyer's suit. The buyer lost.

The first reversal

The buyer went to the first appellate court — the Court of Additional District Judge, Buldana. This court looked at the registered sale deed and said something different. A registered sale deed, the court noted, carries a legal presumption of genuineness — the law assumes it is real unless proven otherwise. The seller had admitted signing it. The appellate court found the deed genuine and ordered that the buyer should get possession.

The buyer had won. But the story was far from over.

When the High Court went too far

The seller went to the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, in a second appeal — a second-level appeal that usually only considers questions of law, not facts. And here, the case took a strange turn.

The High Court did not decide whether the sale deed was genuine. Instead, it looked at an earlier sale deed — one between the two defendants themselves, before the buyer was involved. The High Court declared that earlier deed invalid under Section 9(1) of the Fragmentation Act — a provision that makes certain land transfers void if they create fragments. Then, using that finding, it held that the 1979 sale deed to the buyer was also void.

The High Court reversed the appellate court and restored the trial court's dismissal. The buyer had lost again.

The three problems the Supreme Court saw

When the case reached the Supreme Court in 2023, the judges — Justice M.R. Shah and Justice C.T. Ravikumar — saw three fundamental problems with what the High Court had done.

First problem: the High Court adjudicated a dispute between co-defendants. The buyer had sued the seller. The validity of an earlier sale deed between the seller and another defendant was not part of the buyer's case. The High Court had no jurisdiction to decide that inter-se dispute — a dispute between two parties who are both on the same side of the case. Under Order VIII Rule 6A of the Code of Civil Procedure — the rule that allows a defendant to file a counter-claim against the plaintiff — a defendant cannot use a counter-claim to fight with another defendant. The Supreme Court held that "an inter-se dispute on the validity of a sale deed executed between defendants cannot be considered in a suit for possession instituted by the plaintiff, as it would amount to adjudication of a right or claim by way of counter-claim by one defendant against his co-defendant, which is not permitted under Order VIII Rule 6A CPC." The High Court had stepped into territory it had no business entering.

Second problem: the High Court ignored Section 36A of the Fragmentation Act. This section contains a statutory bar of jurisdiction — it says that civil courts cannot decide questions that the Act requires to be decided by a "competent authority" — a special government officer appointed under the Act. The High Court, without even considering this bar, decided the Fragmentation Act issue itself. It should have either referred the question to the competent authority under Section 36B(1) or simply stayed its hands. The Supreme Court noted that "a vague averment in a written statement referring to the Fragmentation Act cannot constitute a counter-claim capable of being treated as a plaint."

Third problem: the seller's two pleas destroyed each other. The seller had said the sale deed was a sham document — meaning it was never intended to transfer ownership. Then he said the same sale deed violated the Fragmentation Act — an argument that only makes sense if the deed was a genuine transfer that actually happened. The Supreme Court called these "mutually destructive pleas" — two arguments that cannot both be true. As the Court observed, "a defendant who takes mutually destructive pleas — that a sale deed was never intended to be acted upon (sham document) and simultaneously that the same sale deed violates the Fragmentation Act (which presupposes a genuine transfer) — cannot succeed on either plea as they are mutually annihilative." If the deed was a sham, there was no transfer to violate the Fragmentation Act. If it violated the Fragmentation Act, it was a real transfer that happened to be illegal. The seller could not have it both ways.

Why the registered sale deed mattered

The Supreme Court also reminded everyone of a basic rule of evidence. Under Sections 91 and 92 of the Indian Evidence Act — which say that written documents cannot be contradicted by oral statements — once a registered sale deed is admitted to have been signed, its contents are presumed to be true. The person challenging the deed — here, the seller — carries the burden of proving that the document does not reflect the real transaction. Oral evidence — someone just saying "it was a loan, not a sale" — is not enough to override a clear, registered document.

The seller had admitted signing the deed. He had not produced any evidence to show it was a sham. The appellate court had correctly found the deed genuine. The High Court had no basis to reverse that finding.

The precedents that guided the Court

The Supreme Court relied on several earlier decisions to support its reasoning. In Charanjit & Ors. v. State of Punjab & Anr. — (2013) 11 SCC 163 — the Court had previously held that civil courts must respect statutory bars on their jurisdiction. In Adambai Sulemanbhai Ajmeri & Ors. v. State of Gujarat — (2014) 7 SCC 716 — the Court reiterated that questions reserved for special tribunals cannot be decided by ordinary civil courts. In Jag Mohan Chawla and Anr. v. Dera Radha Swami Satsang & Ors. — (1996) 4 SCC 699 — the Court emphasised that a registered document carries a presumption of genuineness that cannot be displaced by oral testimony alone. And in Rohit Singh and Ors. v. State of Bihar — (2006) 12 SCC 734 — the Court clarified that a defendant cannot raise a counter-claim against a co-defendant under Order VIII Rule 6A CPC. These precedents formed the doctrinal backbone of the Supreme Court's judgment.

What the Supreme Court ordered

The Supreme Court allowed the buyer's appeal, set aside the High Court's judgment, and restored the decree of the first appellate court. The buyer, after forty-four years, finally got his land. The court also ordered the seller to pay costs — a rare step that signals disapproval of how the case was fought.

THE PLAY: When a defendant raises two contradictory defences — one denying the transaction and the other arguing it was illegal — the second defence fails because it admits the transaction the first defence denies.

The seller started by saying the sale deed never happened. Then he said it happened but was illegal. The Supreme Court asked: which is it? And when the seller could not answer, the case was over.