The Common Law in India - College of Social Sciences and ...

Civil Law 99Some of the provisions of the Bill were borrowedfrom the enactments which were to be repealed. Butthe Bill was based mainly on the English law of realproperty. The Law of Conveyancing and PropertyAct, 1881, 71 had been enacted in England before theBill was passed into law and some of the provisionsof the Indian Act notably the provisions relating tosale by court of property free from incumbrance, 72the right to redeem separately or simultaneously, 73and the power of sale without the intervention of thecourt 74 were borrowed from that statute. In framingthe sections relating to the law of mortgages of immovableproperty and charges, assistance was takenfrom the work of Dr. Rashbehary Ghose, a distinguishedwriter on the law of mortgages in India. 75At the suggestion of Sir Henry Maine, who was astrong advocate of the Continental system of a publictransfer of land, the Act made written and registeredinstruments obligatory in certain cases of sales, mortgages,leases, exchanges and gifts of immovableproperty. 76The Succession Act and the Contract Act havingbeen put on the Statute Book, the chief purpose ofthis Act was to bring the rules which regulated thetransmission of property between living persons intoharmony with the rules effecting its devolution andthus to furnish as it were a complement to the work" 44 & 45 Viet. o. 41. Transfer of Property Act, 4 of 1882, s. 57.« Ibid., s. 61.•