The Supreme Court held that a registered sale deed remains valid even when the buyer has not paid the full agreed price, because the seller's only remedy for the unpaid balance is a civil suit to recover the money, not cancellation of the completed sale. The ruling came in Raziya Begum v. Nafisa Begum, where the seller had sought to have the sale deed set aside for non-payment of part of the consideration.
What this changes for a title check
This closes off a cancellation argument that title lawyers sometimes see raised by sellers or their heirs years after a registered sale, that because the full sale price was never actually paid, the deed itself is void and title never passed. The Supreme Court confirms that under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act, once a sale deed is validly executed and registered, non-payment of consideration, in whole or part, does not affect the transfer of ownership. It only gives the seller a right to sue for the money.
For a title-check practitioner, this means a registered sale deed cannot be discounted or flagged as defective merely because old litigation records show a recovery suit for unpaid consideration between the original parties. What matters is whether the deed was validly executed and registered, not whether the price was actually paid in full. A pending or decided money-recovery suit tied to a sale deed should be noted for completeness but does not, by itself, put title in doubt.