Citation: Smt. Swaraj Chopra v. Smt. Shanti Devi (Deceased) through LRs & Ors., RSA 75/2026, Delhi High Court (Justice Neena Bansal Krishna), decided on 06.10.2026 | 2026:DHC:8802
An agreement to sell immovable property does not create ownership, and cannot be enforced against a seller who has since given up his rights, without making the person who now holds them a party. Even where no date is fixed for the sale deed, a suit for specific performance must be filed within a reasonable time and within three years of notice that performance is refused, under the second part of Article 54 of the Limitation Act. A long delay, especially in a valuable urban property, weighs against granting the discretionary relief.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed a second appeal for specific performance of a 2001 agreement to sell a first floor in Ramesh Nagar, holding that the suit filed in 2017 was barred by limitation and that, in any case, the agreement could not be enforced against a seller who no longer owned the property.
Swaraj Chopra said she bought the first floor (the one-third share of Kishan Lal, a co-owner) for Rs 45,000 under an agreement to sell, receipt, possession letter and GPA dated 3 August 2001, and rebuilt the old structure that year. In 2003, Kishan Lal relinquished his share in favour of his brother Nand Kishore for Rs 1.5 lakh. In 2005, Nand Kishore claimed to be the owner and started eviction proceedings against Chopra’s husband under the Delhi Rent Control Act. She sent a legal notice for execution of a sale deed only on 23 July 2017 and filed her suit later that year. The trial court dismissed it for want of registered documents, deficient stamp duty, the lack of any partition among the brothers and delay, and the District Judge upheld this, holding that the suit was barred even if the time ran from September 2006. Justice Neena Bansal Krishna agreed. She held that an agreement to sell does not create ownership or any interest in the property under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act. Since Kishan Lal had given up his rights in 2003, it could not be enforced against him, and Nand Kishore, to whom he had transferred them, was never made a party. The agreement had no fixed date for the sale deed, which was to be done “if and when permissible”, but there was no explanation of what the impediment was or when it ended. The court said that while time is not ordinarily of the essence in a property sale, specific performance must still be sought within a reasonable period, relying on Saradamani Kandappan and R. Kandasamy to say that a prolonged delay in an urban property with rising prices calls for greater scrutiny. It found that her claim that she learned of the relinquishment only in March 2007 was wrong, since her husband’s written statement was filed in September 2006. Even counting from then, an 11-year gap makes the suit barred under Article 54 of the Limitation Act. No substantial question of law arose.
