Jogender and Others vs Kishan Lal and Others

Bharat Bhushan Parsoon, J.—Dismissal of application under Order I Rule 10 CPC vide order dated 5.10.2013 (Annexure P-4) passed by the lower court has resulted in filing of this civil revision petition by the applicants/petitioners by way of invoking supervisory powers of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

Hearing has been provided to the counsel for the parties while going through the paper book.

Harnarain son of Sarjit had purchased 40 Bighas of land in village Gokal. He had two brothers viz. Ram Dutt and Ram Lal. Successors of Harnarain had filed a suit on 9.8.1983 against successors of Ram Dutt whereby dispute of title among them was decided in their favour on 29.9.1986 (Annexure P-2). Thereafter, yet another suit has been preferred by them on 6.8.2008 claiming their title on the basis of said judgment and decree dated 29.9.1986 where relief has been sought for correction of the revenue record where they had been shown to be owners of 2/3rd share whereas the decree had adjudicated 5/6th share to them in the land. This litigation is again continuing between successors of Harnarain and successors of Ram Dutt.

It is important to notice that neither the present applicants nor their predecessor-in-interest had either been parties to the earlier litigation decided on 29.9.1986 nor are parties in the present litigation.

Claim of the applicants-petitioners is that their predecessor-in-interest viz. Ram Lal was one of two other brothers of Harnarain and thus, entire property in the name of Harnarain was to be shared equally by all the brothers as his exclusive name had been recorded in the sale deed only out of courtesy as he was looking after the affairs of the land.

Entire case of the petitioners/applicants is based on a Bahi entry which is in the nature of a compromise to the effect that all the three brothers viz. Harnarain, Ram Dutt and Ram Lal were joint in cultivation and ownership of the land. Neither there is any date nor month nor year of execution of the said Bahi entry nor any circumstances under which the same was executed, have emerged on the record. The applicants have failed to explain as to why this entry has not been produced earlier and reflected in any revenue record.

Even otherwise, the plaintiffs are dominus litus. When the plaintiffs are neither claiming any relief against the applicants nor there are any such circumstances that the dispute among the parties cannot be adjudicated without their impleadment as parties to the litigation, there is no merit in their application to implead them as parties in the present litigation.

In fact, the present suit is a sequel to decree dated 29.9.1986, whereby entries in revenue record have been challenged and are sought to be rectified wherein the applicants were neither parties to the earlier litigation nor are required for adjudication of the present dispute between the parties and nor any relief is sought by the plaintiffs against them. No fault can be found with the impugned order. It would be worth notice that decree of 29.9.1986 was not an ex parte decree and rather came into existence after adjudication in a long drawn litigation from 9.8.1983 to 29.9.1986 between the parties to the said litigation.

Keeping in view the entirety of the matter, when there is no factual or legal flaw in the impugned order, the same is hereby affirmed and the petition being without any merit is dismissed.