Court caseAIR 1990 SC 1173

Dularia Devi, an illiterate woman, wanted to make a gift of some property to her daughter. She was taken to the registry office and made to put her thumb impression on two documents, having been told that both were parts of the gift deed. One of them was in fact a sale deed of her entire property in favour of the defendants, for which she received nothing. She later sued for possession, treating the sale deed as a nullity.

The Supreme Court held that the sale deed was void. Following Ningawwa v. Byrappa (1968), the Court distinguished two kinds of fraud: where the executant is misled as to the character of the document she signs, her mind never goes with the document and it is void; where she knows the kind of document but is misled as to its contents, the document is voidable. Dularia Devi had intended to execute a gift to her daughter and had no idea that she was signing a sale; the deed was therefore a nullity and no suit for cancellation was needed.