MP High Court: sale of property below Rs. 100 valid by delivery of possession, even with unregistered deed

The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Gwalior Bench (Ashish Shroti, J.), in a judgment pronounced on 23 October 2026, dismissed a second appeal by Gram Panchayat, Veerpur against a decree declaring the respondents' title to a small plot of land that their grandfather had purchased from the local zamindar in 1937. The Panchayat argued that because the 1937 transaction was reduced to writing, the unregistered sale deed could not transfer title, and only a registered instrument could do so. The Court held that under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the sale of tangible immovable property worth less than Rs. 100 can be completed either by a registered instrument or by delivery of possession, and that the existence of an unregistered written document recording such a sale does not, by itself, defeat a claim based on delivery of possession, so long as actual delivery is independently established on the facts.

Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Brijvasilal v. Abdul Haji and an Allahabad High Court ruling surveying the point, the Court found that the respondents' grandfather had been placed in and continued in possession since 1937, which also vested title in him under Section 5 of the Madhya Bharat Zamindari Abolition Act, 1951 on abolition of zamindari. The Panchayat failed to show any competing title of its own. This is a Madhya Pradesh High Court ruling, binding within that State, not a Supreme Court precedent.