Supreme Court: a plaintiff must still prove an oral contract was actually concluded to get specific performance

A suit for specific performance based on an alleged oral agreement for sale of land was decreed by both the trial court and the High Court, largely because the defendants' witnesses gave evasive answers under cross-examination, which the courts treated as supporting an adverse inference in the plaintiff's favour. The Supreme Court, per Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran, reaffirmed that a suit for specific performance can validly be founded on an oral agreement, as held in Brij Mohan v. Sugra Begum, so the suit was not barred on that ground alone. However, it held that the concurrent findings were perverse: an evasive or dishonest stance by opposing witnesses can support an adverse inference, but it cannot itself substitute for the plaintiff's independent burden of proving that a concluded contract, with agreed terms such as price, actually came into existence.

On the evidence, including an unpresented cheque said to be part payment, the plaintiff had failed to establish a concluded contract. The Court also held that a second suit for specific performance was not barred by Order II Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, since the first suit had been withdrawn with liberty to sue afresh. It allowed the appeal, set aside the lower courts' orders, and dismissed the suit.