A person given power of attorney over a property cannot sell the asset unless there is a specific provision giving him the power, the Supreme Court has held in a judgment.
The judgment is significant and covers properties of NRIs, invalids and others who trust the welfare of their property with others through a power of attorney document.
A Bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and V. Ramasubramanian said the power to sell the property, which is the subject matter of the power of attorney document, could not be just inferred.
“The power to sell cannot be inferred from a document of power of attorney,” Justice Ramasubramanian, who authored the verdict for the Bench, stated.
Appeal by woman
The judgment is based on an appeal filed by a woman, Umadevi Nambiar, represented by senior advocate Dushyant Dave and advocate Haris Beeran, from Kozhikode district in Kerala who had given her sister power of attorney over her share of the property they both inherited from their father.
She was in London at the time, and later came to know that the sister had sold her property to discharge debts incurred in the family business. The land was now in the hands of Thamarasseri Roman Catholic and was developed as a commercial property.
The Supreme Court checked the power of attorney document and held that the sister of the appellant was not authorised to sell the property.
At best, the sister had the power to lease or offer the property as security for a borrowal, but “not an express power to sell the property”.
The court also did not heed the argument made by the respondent that Mrs. Nambiar had returned from England and was staying at a house hardly a km from the property in question and she knew that it was being sold. The respondent said her silence indicated acquiescence.
However, Justice Ramasubramanian tackled this arguments by referring to the factual findings of the trial court which concluded that Mrs. Nambiar was indeed not aware of the sale of the property.
