Specific Performance -- Refund of Earnest Money -- Statutory relief cannot be granted without specific claim
(i) Specific Relief Act, 1963, S.22 -- Specific Performance -- Refund of Earnest Money -- Statutory relief cannot be granted without specific claim. Refund of earnest money in a suit for specific performance is a statutory relief and not an unstructured equitable relief. Such refund cannot be decreed unless specifically claimed in the plaint or by amendment. General powers of court under Code of Civil Procedure cannot override this statutory bar, and equitable discretion cannot travel beyond the boundaries fixed by the statute. (ii) Indian Contract Act, 1872, S.62 -- Limitation in Specific Performance Suit -- Later Agreement Between Parties -- Novation shifts date for reckoning limitation. Where a later agreement fixes a different consideration, records different terms, and does not refer to the earlier agreement as its continuation, it constitutes novation of the earlier contract. Limitation for a suit for specific performance is then reckoned from the date fixed for performance under the later agreement.
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