A, having no title to Blackacre, conveys it to B for consideration. Later, A acquires title to Blackacre. Discuss B's rights.

A having no title conveys Blackacre to B for consideration and subsequently acquires title — is a direct and clean illustration of the doctrine codified in section 43 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882. It is, in essence, the paradigm case that the section was designed to address. To understand B's rights fully, we need to trace the journey from the moment of the original defective conveyance to the moment A acquires title, and then examine what B may do, against whom he may do it, and when that right may be defeated.

The Governing Principle: Feeding the Grant by Estoppel

The general rule of property law, rooted in the maxim nemo dat quod non habet — no one can give what he does not have — would ordinarily render A's conveyance to B entirely worthless. A had no title to Blackacre; he could transfer nothing. Yet section 43 operates as a deliberate and equitable departure from this rule. The section declares that where a person fraudulently or erroneously represents that he is authorised to transfer certain immovable property and professes to transfer it for consideration, such transfer shall, at the option of the transferee, operate on any interest which the transferor may acquire in such property at any time during which the contract of transfer subsists.

The underlying principle is beautifully simple: if a man promises more than he can perform, he must fulfil that promise when he acquires the ability to do so. As Lord Buckmaster observed in Tilakdhari Law v Khedan Lal (AIR 1921 PC 112), "if a man who has no title whatever to property grants it by a conveyance which in the form would carry the legal estate, and he subsequently acquires an interest sufficient to satisfy the grant, the estate instantly passes." Indian law, however, modifies this English position in one important respect — the transfer does not pass automatically; it requires the affirmative exercise of an option by the transferee B.

B's Right: The Option to Claim Blackacre

The moment A acquires title to Blackacre, the law does not transfer it to B as a matter of course. What the law does is invest in B a right to elect — an option to require A to deliver Blackacre to him. This option does not have to be exercised in any prescribed manner. It may be indicated by a notice, by instituting a suit for specific performance, or by any other unequivocal act that communicates B's intention to hold A to the original contract. The Supreme Court in Hardev Singh v Gurmail Singh (AIR 2007 SC 1058) confirmed that it is solely upon the exercise of this option that the transfer becomes valid and enforceable.

There is, however, one indispensable precondition: the contract of transfer must still be subsisting when B exercises his option. A contract remains subsisting until it is rescinded by B or otherwise extinguished. If B, upon discovering that A had no title, had chosen to sue for damages and thereby treated the contract as at an end, section 43 would no longer be available to him. But as long as B has waited — keeping the contract alive, not repudiating it — the option is preserved for him. In the celebrated illustration to section 43 itself, when A, a Hindu separated from his father B, sells to C three fields including Z which belongs to B, and on B's death A as heir obtains Z, C — not having rescinded the contract — may require A to deliver Z. The facts presented are virtually on all fours with this illustration.

The Condition of Competency

It is important to note that section 43 requires that the contract must have been made by parties competent to contract. This is not a difficulty in our problem — both A and B are presumed to be adult and capable persons. The section cannot be invoked to validate a contract that was void at its very inception due to statutory incapacity, such as a transfer by a minor. The Supreme Court in Kartar Singh v Harbans Kaur (1994 4 SCC 730) emphasised that even constructive knowledge of the transferor's incompetency on the part of the transferee would take the case outside section 43, as it would destroy the very foundation of misrepresentation upon which the estoppel rests. In our problem, B is the innocent party who paid consideration relying on A's representation, and there is no suggestion that B knew of A's lack of title — so B's claim stands on solid ground.

The Threat to B's Rights: A Subsequent Bona Fide Purchaser

B's right is not absolute. Section 43 contains a proviso that acts as a powerful check: the doctrine shall not impair the rights of a transferee in good faith, for consideration, and without notice of the existence of B's option. This means that if, after acquiring title, A sells Blackacre to C — a buyer who pays fair value and has no knowledge of B's prior claim — C will prevail over B.

The practical lesson for B, therefore, is that the option must be exercised without delay. Once A acquires title to Blackacre, B stands in a race against time. Every moment he delays, A remains the apparent owner, capable of passing a clean title to an innocent third party. The Supreme Court in HPA International v Bhagwandas Fateh Chand Daswani (AIR 2004 SC 3858) confirmed that until the option is exercised by the transferee, the validation of the transfer does not take place, and the transferor remains capable of creating a good title in favour of a bona fide purchaser. If B does not act promptly and A sells to C without notice, B's only remedy against A is a personal one — he can sue A for the consideration paid, along with any damages he may have suffered.

Limits on B's Option

The interest B can claim through his option is strictly confined to the same interest over the same property that A professed to transfer. Section 43 operates on Blackacre alone; it does not permit B to fasten his claim on any other property A may happen to acquire. Similarly, the acquisition must be by A himself — if A dies before acquiring title and his heirs subsequently acquire Blackacre in their own right through inheritance or a Will, B cannot exercise his option against them. The estoppel is personal to the transferor. As illustrated in Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee v Bannamma (AIR 2014 SC 3000), where the transferor's son fraudulently transferred his mother's property and never acquired any interest in it during his lifetime, the doctrine of feeding the grant did not apply against the heirs who succeeded to that property independently.

The Conclusion

B's position in law is this: the moment A acquires title to Blackacre, B acquires an option — an inchoate but valuable right — to compel A to deliver Blackacre to him, provided B exercises that option while the contract is still alive and before the property has passed to a bona fide purchaser for value and without notice. If B acts promptly, equity — speaking through section 43 — will not allow A to take shelter behind his own earlier incapacity. The transfer is perfected not at the moment of the original conveyance, but at the moment B exercises the option. A is estopped from denying what he once represented; the grant, so to speak, is fed by the very title A has since acquired.