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 Com
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 c
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 pl
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-plaint