Constitution of India: Arts.226/227 – Writ jurisdiction, invocation of – Dispute between appellant and respondent no.1 related to the possession of flat – One civil suit between the appellant and respondent No. 1 in relation to the flat in question for grant of injunction was pending in the Munsif Court – Appellant and respondent No. 1 were private individuals – Writ petition filed by respondent no.1 – High Court directed the appellant by issuing a writ of mandamus to restore the possession of flat in question to respondent no.1 – On appeal, held: Appellant and respondent No.
1 were private individuals and both were claiming their rights of ownership and possession over the flat in question on various factual grounds – The question as to who is the owner of the flat in question, whether respondent No. 1 was/is in possession of the flat and, if so, from which date, how and in what circumstances, he claimed to be in its possession, whether his possession could be regarded as legal or not qua its real owner etc. were some of the material questions which arose for consideration in the writ petition – These questions were pure questions of fact and could be answered one way or the other only by the civil court in a properly constituted civil suit and on the basis of the evidence adduced by the parties but not in a writ petition filed under Art.226 of the Constitution by the High Court – Impugned order set aside – Writ of mandamus.
Allowing the appeal, the Court
HELD: 1. A regular suit is the appropriate remedy for settlement of the disputes relating to property rights between the private persons. The remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution shall not be available except where violation of some statutory duty on the part of statutory authority is alleged. In such cases, the Court has jurisdiction to issue appropriate directions to the authority concerned. It is held that the High Court cannot allow its constitutional jurisdiction to be used for deciding disputes, for which remedies under the general law, civil or criminal are available. This Court has held that it is not intended to replace the ordinary remedies by way of a civil suit or application available to an aggrieved person. The jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution being special and extraordinary, it should not be exercised casually or lightly on mere asking by the litigant. The writ petition to claim such relief was not, therefore, legally permissible. It, therefore, deserved dismissal in limine on the ground of availability of an alternative remedy of filing a civil suit by respondent No. 1 (writ petitioner) in the Civil Court. The High Court, therefore, while so directing exceeded its extraordinary jurisdiction conferred under Article 226 of the Constitution. Indeed, the High Court in granting such relief, had virtually converted the writ petition into a civil suit and itself to a Civil Court. It was not permissible. [Paras 15, 16, 18][978-C-H]
Mohan Pande v. Usha Rani, 1992 (4) SCC 61 : [1992]
3 SCR 904 ; Dwarka Prasad Agrawal v. BD Agrawal (2003) 6 SCC 230 : [2003] 1 Suppl. SCR 336 – relied on
2. There did exist a dispute between the appellant and respondent No. 1 as to who was in possession of the flat in question at the relevant time; Second, a dispute regarding possession of the said flat between the two private individuals could be decided only by the Civil Court in civil suit or by the Criminal Court in Section 145 Cr.P.C proceedings but not in the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. [Para 20]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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