Injunction Suit To Protect Possession Not Maintainable When Plaintiff's Title Is Disputed: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court held that the suit for injunction may not be maintainable against the defendants if the plaintiff fails to prove the title of the property while praying for the injunction.

“....a suit simpliciter for injunction may not be maintainable as the title of the property of the plaintiff/respondent was disputed by the appellants/defendants. In such a situation it was required for the respondent/plaintiff to prove the title of the property while praying for injunction.”, the Bench Comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Rajesh Bindal said while reversing the findings of the High Court and First Appellate Court.

The gist of the dispute was that the plaintiff had filed a suit for injunction restraining the defendant from interfering in the peaceful enjoyment of the disputed land in possession of the plaintiff. The Plaintiff (legal heirs of the deceased) claimed that the Gram Panchayat had leased out the disputed piece of land to her (now dead).

Per contra, it was submitted by the defendant that the land being reserved for grazing cattles as appeared in the government records and in absence of mutation could not possibly be leased out by the Gram Panchayat.

The Trial Court refused to provide an injunction in favor of the plaintiff. The Trial Court reasoned that the plaintiff was found to be in illegal possession of the land and were not entitled to the injunction prayed for. It was specifically noticed that the suit had not been filed for declaration as it was merely for injunction and the encroachers on the land were not found entitled to the relief of injunction.

However, the First Appellate Court reversed the findings of the Trial Court, and the findings of the First Appellate Court were confirmed by the High Court.

It is against the findings of the High Court that the appeal was preferred by the defendants before the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court's Observation

Disagreeing with the plaintiff's submissions, the Judgment authored by Justice Rajesh Bindal observed that mere production of a lease deed executed by the Gram Panchayat in the favour of the plaintiff would not be sufficient to prove that the lease deed was executed in favor of the plaintiff.

The plaintiff made an effort to prove the lease deed by producing two witnesses, however, after finding discrepancies in the witnesses' statements, the court stated that their statements could not be produced in evidence.

“There was no material on record to show that, except the oral statements of aforesaid two witnesses that at the relevant time, namely, in the year 1959, they were members of the Gram Panchayat otherwise the document Ex.1 (lease deed) placed on record by the respondents-plaintiffs as such does not contain their signatures. The document only contains signatures of some Sarpanch who had attested the same stating to be true copy. It was claimed that at the relevant time, Sarpanch was Kushal Singh, however before the evidence could be led, he expired and hence could not be produced in evidence.”

Rather, the Supreme Court stated that “If the respondents-plaintiffs wished to prove the contents of the document (lease deed) in question, they could very well summon the record from the Gram Panchayat when a specific plea taken by the appellants was that the document was forged and the Gram Panchayat did not have the competence to lease out the land.”

After finding that the disputed land is government land reserved for grazing cattles, and the plaintiff has failed to prove the contents of the lease deed by calling the record from the Gram Panchayat, the Supreme Court noted that the plaintiff had failed to establish their title on the land.

“Nothing was referred to by learned counsel for the respondents from the record to show the reasons for producing a copy of the document in Court and not summoning the record from the Gram Panchayat to prove execution of the alleged lease in their favor. The contents of the documents were required to be proved.”

“In view of aforesaid discussions, in our opinion, the judgment of the High Court suffers from patent illegality. Consequently, the judgment and decree of the First Appellate Court as well as the High Court are set aside and that of the Trial Court is restored. As a consequence, the suit filed by the respondents is dismissed.”, the Supreme Court stated while allowing the appeal of the defendant.

Further, the court stated that a suit simpliciter for an injunction may not be maintainable as the title of the property of the plaintiff/respondent was disputed by the appellants/defendants. In such a situation it was required for the respondent/plaintiff to prove the title of the property while praying for an injunction. Reference can be made to the judgment of this Court in Anathula Sudhakar v. P. Buchi Reddy (Dead) by Lrs. and Ors.

Counsels For Appellant(s) Mr. S. Niranjan Reddy, Sr. Adv. Mr. C. Mohan Rao, Adv. Ms. Aruna Gupta, AOR Mr. Ramesh Allanki, Adv. Mr. Syed Ahmad Naqvi, Adv.

Counsels For Respondent(s) Mr. Rishabh Sancheti, Adv. Ms. Padma Priya, Adv. Mr. Anchit Bhandari, Adv. Mr. Karan Bhootra, Adv. Mr. Garvit Sharma, Adv. Mr. K. Paari Vendhan, AOR Mr. V.K. Shukla, Sr. Adv. Mr. Vivek Gupta, Adv. Mr. Mrinmay Bhattmewara, Adv. Mr. Manish Mogra, Adv. Mr. Ankit Verma, Adv. Mr. Dashrath Singh, Adv. Gp. Capt. Karan Singh Bhati, AOR Mr. S.K.Upadhyay Sr. Adv. Mr. Hitesh Kumar Sharma, Adv. Mr. S.K. Rajora, Adv. Mr. Sandeep Singh Dhingra, Adv. Mr. Amit Kumar Chawla, Adv. Ms. Niharika Dewivedi, Adv. Ms. Kaveri Upadhyay, Adv. Mr. T. Mahipal, AOR

Case Details: THE TEHSILDAR, URBAN IMPROVEMENT TRUST AND ANR. VERSUS GANGA BAI MENARIYA (DEAD) THROUGH LRS. AND OTHERS, Civil Appeal No. 722 of 2012.

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 153

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