Summary
In a plot-allotment dispute pending for decades, the Supreme Court modified the decree for specific performance to award Rs.50 lakh as full and final settlement, payable within three months. The purchaser had sought adequate damages in the alternative, and a mere refund with interest would be unreasonable after sixty years and substantial land-price appreciation.
Issues
- Whether the developer could rely on the purchaser’s response to the revised offer or earlier refund requests to resist relief.
- What alternative relief was appropriate after six decades in a suit for specific performance of plot allotment.
Held
- The purchaser’s timely request for the revised layout, plot particulars, adjustment of earlier payments and external-development charges did not justify treating him as having rejected the offer. The developer failed to answer either that request or the legal notice. The suit was filed within limitation. (¶¶ 9, 9.1)
- The earlier plot-holders’ association litigation did not defeat this claim: that suit had been filed nine years after the revised offer and dismissed as time-barred. The developer could not rely on the purchaser’s earlier refund requests, which it had not answered. (¶ 12)
- The alternative prayer was for adequate damages, not merely refund of earnest money with interest. After six decades, continuing litigation and substantial appreciation of land value, a simple refund would be unreasonable. On the totality of these facts, Rs.50 lakh was directed as full and final settlement instead of registration at the original rate. The Court did not decide the developer’s assertion that no plots remained. (¶¶ 10, 11, 13)
Result
Appeals disposed of by modifying the High Court decree: instead of registration of the plot at Rs.25 per square yard, the developer was to pay the respondent Rs.50 lakh as full and final settlement within three months.