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Judgment
Sanjay Kumar, CJ
The applicants in this miscellaneous case are the respondents in the main civil revision petition. They seek an interim temporary injunction restraining the petitioners in the revision petition from entering into the suit land and making constructions thereon, pending disposal of the revision petition.
Though Order XXXIX Rules 1, 2 & 3 CPC do not bar the defendant(s) in a suit from seeking a temporary injunction against the plaintiff(s) in deserving situations, the case on hand is not that simple.
The main revision petition arises out of OS No. 24 of 2006/51 of 2011. This suit was dismissed for default on 30.06.2010. It was restored on 03.03.2011 but came to be dismissed for default once again on 08.11.2011. This cycle recurred again as the suit was restored once more on 31.12.2011 but was, yet again, dismissed for default on 27.04.2012. The application filed by the plaintiffs in the suit for restoration was dismissed by the Trial Court on 17.01.2013, not on merits but for default. The plaintiffs thereupon filed an application seeking restoration of the application filed for restoration, which had been dismissed for default. On 13.06.2014, the Trial Court refused to condone the delay in filing the application. It is against this order that the present revision was preferred by the plaintiffs in the suit.
The aforestated facts clearly demonstrate that there is no proceeding pending before the Trial Court as on date.
Interestingly, the main revision petition, viz., CRP No. 48 of 2015, was dismissed by this Court for non-prosecution on 25.09.2018. Applications are still pending for restoration and for condonation of the delay in seeking such restoration. In effect, there is no revision pending before this Court as on date.
In the aforesaid circumstances, when neither a suit is pending before the Trial Court nor a civil revision petition is pending before this Court, it is not open to the defendants in the suit, the respondents in the civil revision petition, to maintain an application for a temporary injunction. Any actions on the part of the plaintiffs in the suit causing grievance to the defendants therein would constitute a separate cause of action and it would be for them to invoke appropriate legal remedies in accordance with law. Filing an injunction application in a defunct CRP is not the remedy.
MC(CRP(CRP.Art.2270) No. 12 of 2021 is accordingly dismissed, leaving it open to the applicants to take recourse to proper remedies available to them before the appropriate forum in accordance with law.
A copy of this order shall be supplied online or through whatsapp to the learned counsel for the parties.