It was only out of her love and affection and considering her old age and on a clear understanding of her moral duty, she transferred the suit land in favor of the plaintiff by way of gift deed. This ‘consideration’ should not in any way be termed as ‘valuable consideration’ but it should be considered as ‘good consideration’ and ‘good consideration’ is not prohibited under Section 122 of the Transfer of Property Act, for ‘good consideration’ is the antithesis of ‘valuable consideration’. this was held in Shri Mouna Brata Sarkar And ors v. Shri Subrata Sarkar[RFA NO.18 OF 2018] in the High Court of Tripura by the single bench consisting of MR. JUSTICE ARINDAM LODH.
The facts are that the respondent had instituted the suit for declaration of title and recovery of possession of the suit land from the appellants who are his brother and sister in law. The Trial Court had passed an order that a gift deed had been duly executed and the plaintiff is entitled to the delivery of the suit property. Aggrieved with the judgment passed by the Civil Judge, the defendants have preferred the present first appeal.
The counsel for the appellant contended that since the gift deed had been transacted out of that promise constituting the basis of consideration the said gift deed suffered from illegality and void ab initio. The suit land was purchased both by the plaintiff and the defendant in the name of their mother and lion share of the consideration‟ money was paid by the defendant but taking advantage of the old age of their mother, the plaintiff somehow had managed to obtain the gift deed.
The counsel appearing for the respondent contended that the interpretation of counsel for the appellants in regard to the term of consideration was not a correct proposition of law and was liable to be rejected. The plaintiff had been able to prove the gift deed and thus no interference of the court was required.
The Court made reference to the judgment of Currie V. Misa, wherein the following observation had been made,“ A valuable consideration, in the sense of the law, may consist either in some right, interest, profit, or benefit accruing to the one party, or some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility, given, suffered or undertaken by the other.”
The Court also made reference to judgment of Division Bench of Bombay High Court in Ramacharya Venkatramanacharya vs Shrinivasacharya, and observed that “They had also relied upon the meaning of valuable consideration‟ as defined in Currie(supra).”
Considering the precedents and the facts of the case the court held that, the recitals in the gift deed proved that the donor had gifted property in favor of donee voluntarily and without any valuable consideration. The appellants had failed to plead that any fraud was committed in the execution and registration of the gift deed. There is no evidence that the donor executed and registered the gift geed under any undue influence or coercion. Thus dismissing the appeal.
