Gram Panchayat Dhandrian vs Chanan Singh

B.S. Yadav, J.—The facts giving rise to this revision petition are that the present respondents had filed a suit for permanent injunction restraining the present petitioner Gram Panchayat of village Dhandrian and respondent No. 4 Thakur Dass from dispossessing them forcibly from the suit land on the allegations that they constitute Joint Hindu Family. Chanan Singh (plaintiff No.4) had taken the land in question on lease from the said Gram Panchayat for the year 198182 and the plaintiffs came into possession of the land. For the subsequent year lease was taken by Sukhdev Singh (plaintiff No. 2). For the third year i.e. 198384 Joginder Singh (plaintiff No. 3) took the land on lease. Thus the plaintiffs'' contention was that they were in possession of the said land as tenants under Gram Panchayat and they could not be dispossessed forcibly from it.

The defendants contested the suit and pleaded that after the expiry of the lease of Joginder Singh the land for the year 198485 was given to Thakur Dass and he (i.e. Thakur Dass) had since taken possession of the suit land.

Alongwith the plaint the plaintiffs filed an application for the grant of ad interim injunction. The learned trial Court held that Chanan Singh and Sukhdev Singh had no right or interest in the suit land but Joginder Singh was in possession and he was entitled to ad interim injunction as a person in established possession of immovable property was entitled to protect his possession against forcible dispossession even if his lease had expired and thus the defendants could not dispossess him only in due course of law. Accordingly, ad interim injunction was granted in favour of Joginder Singh.

Feeling aggrieved, the defendants filed an appeal which was heard by learned District Judge, Sangrur. He also confirmed the findings of the learned trial Court that Joginder Singh was still in possession of the suit land and that Thakur Dass was not in its possession. Accordingly, it did not find any merit in the appeal and dismissed the same. Gram Panchayat has now come to this Court in revision.

The main argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner was that from the pleadings of the parties, it is clear that the Theka of the land used to be auctioned yearly and different persons used to occupy the land on yearly basis and the possession of such person was merely that of a licensee for a fixed term and, therefore, he was not entitled to any injunction and the learned Courts below have wrongly held that Joginder Singh plaintiff had a prima facie case. In support of his contention he has cited Chandu Lal v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi, A.I.R 1978 Delhi 174 : 1979(1) R.C.R.(Rent) 62. That ruling has no application to the present case. That case refers to the auction of the licence of a Kiosk for a fixed term by the Delhi Municipal Corporation. In those circumstances, it was held that where a licence was validly revoked, the licensee had no right to retain the possession and that he would not be entitled to temporary injunction to defend his possession. In the present case the parties'' case is that lease of the land used to be auctioned yearly. Therefore, the person who took the lease for a particular year cannot be said to be a licensee. The learned counsel for the respondents also referred to rule 6 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Rules, 1964 which refers to the auction of lease of agricultural land in shamilat for a period not exceeding 2 years. Even if the lease is for a fixed period, on the expiry of the period the possession of the person in possession will become that of a tenant holding over.

The learned counsel for the respondents relied upon Gram Sabha of Village Chhajalwadi v. Bhajan Singh, 1984 PLJ 7 : 1984 R.R.R. 200. The facts of that case are practically similar to the facts of the present case. The Gram Sabha who was defendant in that case, had pleaded that the lease in favour of the plaintiff had expired by efflux of time and, therefore, he had no right to retain possession and was consequently estopped from suing. The learned trial Court accepted the plea of Gram Sabha and held that the plaintiff was estopped from filing a suit and was not entitled to the injunction prayed for and consequently dismissed the suit. The plaintiff filed appeal and the Appellate Court reversed the findings of the trial Court and held that the principle of estoppel was not applicable to the case. Accordingly, the appeal was allowed. Gram Sabha came to the Court in second appeal and it was held :

"No meaningful criticism was levelled by the learned counsel for the appellant against the findings of the lower appellate Court. Manifestly, a tenant cannot be physically removed from the land by force after the period of his lease expires and he can be ejected only in due course of law. It is also plain that the principle of estoppel embodied in Section 115 of the Evidence Act has no application to the instant case. Section 115 of the Evidence Act envisages application of estoppel in cases where a person by his declaration, act or omission, intentionally caused or permitted another person to believe a thing to be true and to act upon such belief. In such a case neither he nor his representative, by applying the principle of estoppel, can be allowed to deny the truth of that thing. No such circumstances exist in the present case estopping the plaintiff from filing the suit for injunction".

The above observations clearly apply to the present case.

The learned counsel for the petitioner argued that admittedly the land vests in the Gram Panchayat and, therefore, it has better title than Joginder Singh plaintiff and, therefore, he is not entitled to ad interim injunction. In support of his contention he has relied upon Shri Amrao Singh and others v. Shri Sanatan Dharam Sabha, Chandigarh (Regd) Chandigarh, 1984 PLR 654 : 1984 R.R.R. 156. That ruling also has no application to the facts of the present case. In that case the persons in unauthorised occupation of immovable property claimed a decree for injunction only on the ground of their possessory title. It was held that a decree for injunction could be passed in favour of a plaintiff, who was in possession, only against those persons who are not proved to have better title than him to the suit property. In that case it was also held that the plaintiff''s title was not better than the defendant title and, therefore, the plaintiff was not entitled to the decree for injunction on the basis of his possession. It further appears that the observations made by a Division Bench of this Court in Sadhu Ram v. Gram Panchayat Pastana, 1984 PLJ 217 : 1984(1) R.C.R.(Rent) 483 : 1984 R.R.R. 23 were not brought to the notice of the learned Judge who decided Amrao Singh''s case (supra). The Division Bench remarked as follows :

"I have duly considered the argument. It is wellsettled that the granting of ad interim injunction is purely within the discretion of the Court but the discretion has to be exercised in accordance with the sound Judicial principles. The principles which govern the exercise of the discretion are that the party claiming ad interim injunction should establish that it has a prima facie case, that it is not granted it is likely to suffer a greater mischief and that interference by the Court is necessary to protect it from an irreparable injury. When relief of injunction is claimed against forcible dispossession from immovable property, the established principle of law is that the party in possession for a sufficient long time is entitled to retain it unless dispossessed in due course of law. I am fortified in the above view by the observations of the Supreme Court in Mohan Lal''s case (supra) wherein it was held that under our jurisprudence even an unauthorised occupant can be evicted only in the manner authorised by law. It is relevant to point out that in that case the appellants remained in possession for a period of five years before they were sought to be dispossessed. The above case was followed by a learned Single Judge in Kanhiya''s case (supra). It was observed there that nongranting of the temporary injunction to a person in possession would indicate a licence to another person claiming himself to be the owner to resort to force or unlawful means to dispossess him from the property. In that case also, the plaintiff, who had been granted injunction by this Court had been in possession of the property for more than one year prior to the filing of the suit. Similar view was taken in Roop Chand''s case (supra). The learned judge held that even if it was accepted for the sake of argument that the petitioner was in unauthorised possession of the house, then also he could not be thrown out otherwise than in due course of law. He was entitled to retain the possession subject to any decision given by the Court of law."

Therefore, even if in the present case it is held that Joginder Singh plaintiff has not a better title than the defendants even then the Gram Panchayat could not dispossess him otherwise than in due course of law. Hence it is held that Joginder Singh plaintiff was rightly granted ad interim injunction by the learned Courts below.

For the foregoing reasons I do not find any force in the present revision and consequently dismiss it with no order as to costs.