Supreme Court: In a batch of civil appeals arising from a long-standing property dispute involving alleged encroachment over a common open space and unauthorised construction on a residential wall, a Division Bench of S.V.N. Bhatti and Atul S. Chandurkar*, JJ., examined whether the High Court, while exercising jurisdiction under Section 100, Civil Procedure Code, 1908 (CPC), could substitute decrees of mandatory injunction with an award of monetary compensation in the absence of any such prayer by the plaintiff. The Court held that the High Court committed a manifest error in setting aside concurrent findings of the trial court and the first appellate court on considerations extraneous to the reliefs sought in the suits. Emphasising that a court cannot compel a successful litigant to accept compensation in lieu of an injunction when no such relief was claimed or consented to, the Court found the impugned exercise legally unsustainable and contrary to the scheme of the CPC. Accordingly, the Court set aside the High Court’s judgment and remanded the second appeals for fresh consideration in accordance with Section 100 CPC.
Background
The present appeals arose from 2 civil suits instituted by Om Parkash (since deceased, represented by his legal heirs) against the respondents-defendants concerning alleged encroachments and unauthorised constructions affecting his property. In Civil Suit No. 426 of 1996, the plaintiff sought a mandatory injunction directing removal of a wall allegedly constructed by the defendants over a common open space adjoining his house and a permanent injunction restraining further construction. The trial court decreed the suit on 6 February 2006, directing removal of the encroaching wall and restraining any further construction. The decree was affirmed by the first appellate court on 5 September 2007.
In a separate proceeding, Civil Suit No. 148 of 2000, the plaintiff sought removal of a lintel of a school building erected by the defendants on the wall of his house. The trial court decreed the suit on 8 November 2004 and directed removal of the lintel while restraining the defendants from placing any lintel on the plaintiff’s wall in future. The first appellate court upheld this decree on 5 September 2007.
The defendants challenged both decrees before the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Regular Second Appeal Nos. 364 and 363 of 2008. By judgments dated 25 November 2011, the High Court modified the decrees and directed the defendants to pay compensation along with interest towards the construction costs, further declaring the disputed walls to be common walls upon such payment.
Aggrieved by the reversal of the decrees, the legal heirs of the original plaintiff approached the Supreme Court. By order dated 13 September 2013, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court’s judgments on the ground that no substantial questions of law had been framed and remanded the matters for fresh consideration. Upon remand, the High Court again set aside the concurrent decrees of the courts below, observing that the constructions had existed for a long time and that the plaintiffs could be compensated monetarily. It consequently directed the executing court to assess the value of the constructions and required the defendants to deposit the assessed amount for payment to the plaintiffs. Challenging this reversal of the decrees and substitution of the relief of injunction with monetary compensation, the legal heirs of the original plaintiff preferred the present appeals before the Supreme Court.
Analysis
The Supreme Court held that the High Court committed an error in reversing the concurrent decrees passed by the trial court and affirmed by the first appellate court on wholly irrelevant considerations. The Court noted that the original plaintiff had sought only the relief of mandatory and permanent injunctions for removal of the encroachment and unauthorised construction raised by the defendants. There was no prayer for damages or compensation. In such circumstances, the High Court could not have set aside the decrees and compelled the legal heirs of the plaintiff to accept monetary compensation assessed through a valuer, particularly when they had not consented to such a course.
The Court further observed that once the decrees passed in favour of the plaintiff were set aside, there remained no executable decree. Consequently, the direction issued to the executing court to assess the value of the offending wall and compensate the plaintiffs was legally unsustainable and found no support under Order 21 CPC. The High Court had thus required the executing court to undertake an exercise not backed by any decree.
The Court also noted that a similar attempt by the High Court to substitute the relief of injunction with compensation had earlier been set aside by the Supreme Court. Despite the remand, the High Court again adopted the same impermissible course by directing valuation of the wall and payment of compensation. In the absence of any prayer for compensation in the suit or consent by the legal heirs, such a direction could not have been imposed.
Additionally, the Supreme Court found that the impugned judgment proceeded on a factually incorrect premise that the trial court had treated the disputed wall as a common wall. No such finding had been recorded. Rather, the trial court had decreed removal of the offending wall. The Court further observed that although the High Court referred to certain questions proposed by the defendants as substantial questions of law, the judgment did not indicate that any substantial question of law had in fact been framed and considered in accordance with Section 100 CPC.
Holding that the decrees in favour of the original plaintiff had been set aside without any available question of law and by effectively creating a new relief never sought in the suit, the Supreme Court concluded that the course adopted by the High Court had resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
Decision
Accordingly, the common judgment dated 2 May 2016 passed by the High Court in RSA Nos. 363 and 364 of 2008 was set aside. Since the second appeals had not been adjudicated on merits, the matters were remanded to the High Court for fresh consideration in accordance with Section 100 CPC. The Court requested the High Court to decide the appeals expeditiously, considering that they had been pending since 2008. The civil appeals were allowed with no order as to costs.
[Rajat Kumar v. S D Adarsh Jain Kanya Maha Vidyalaya Sadhaura, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 1161, decided on 19-6-2026]
*Judgment authored by: Justice Atul S. Chandurkar
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For Appellants: Ms. Sangeeta Kumar, Adv
