JUDGMENT
Charles A. Turner, Kt., C.J. and Innes, J.
1. In this case we hold the decree of the District Judge ought to be reversed.
2. It was optional with plaintiff to register his document or not, but the provisions of Section 50 of the Registration Act III of 1877 affect alike documents which it is optional, as well as those which it is compulsory to register.
3. Transactions, evidenced by documents of either description, are rendered of no effect by the subsequent execution and registration of a document relating to the same property.
4. In Fuzludeen Khan v. Fakir Mahomed Khan I.L.R. 5 Cal. 336 the Judge of the High Court, from whose judgment that case came on appeal, based his judgment on the view that the vendor, having by the first sale parted with all interests in the property, had nothing to sell and sold nothing to the subsequent registered purchaser. But the Appellate Court held that the first sale was, according to the intention of the Legislature, subject to the risk of the title of the vendee being displaced by a subsequent innocent purchaser without notice, whose conveyance was duly registered. We agree in this view except that, we think, the effect of registration is altogether independent of notice. In the case just referred to, the question of the effect of notice did not arise, and therefore the case is hardly an authority upon the point.
5. The earliest law on the subject in this Presidency is Regulation XVII of 1802. By Clause 3 of Section 6 of that Regulation, it was provided that, where there was notice by a subsequent purchaser of a prior unregistered deed, the registration of his own subsequent deed would not invalidate the prior deed, though it would without notice. Act XIX of 1843 did away with the doctrine of notice which has never since been expressly revived. There is nothing about notice to be found in the Acts of 1864, 1866, 1871, or 1873. Have we any right to, import this doctrine? Were we to do so, notice, it cannot be doubted would be set up in almost every case, and the Act would be rendered to a great extent inoperative.
6. The plain words of the Act are–” shall, if duly registered, take effect, as regards the property comprised therein, against every unregistered document relating to the same property, &c.” The words are used without any qualification and, we think, we should not be giving effect to the Act if we treated the circumstance of second, third, and fourth defendants having notice (as is found) of plaintiff’s unregistered document as one which bars the operation of Section 50 of the Registration Act.
7. We reverse the decree and restore that of the Munsif, but without costs.
