A Case Of Daylight Judicial Murder: Allahabad High Court Pulls Up Trial Court Judge For Causing Illegal Gain To Plaintiff

The High Court was considering an appeal filed by the defendants under section 96 of the CPC against the judgment of the court of Civil Judge(Senior Division), Ghaziabad, whereby the plaintiff's suit for mandatory injunction was decreed.

The Single Bench of Justice Sandeep Jain held, “ The reason assigned by the trial court for ignoring the death certificate of Sushila Mehra is shocking, perverse and tainted with extraneous considerations. The trial court purposely in order to cause illegal gain to the plaintiff has ignored it, which needs to be deprecated. The conduct of the trial Judge is not above board, who has either due to extraneous reasons or due to lack of competence, has passed the impugned decree, which cannot be legally justified in any manner whatsoever. It is a case of deliberate judicial misconduct, which renders the integrity of the Judge doubtful.This is a case which shocks the conscience of this Court that how could a Judge act in this manner, in order to cause wrongful gain to the plaintiff. The facts of the case speak for themselves, the blatant manner in which law has been flouted and justice has been denied. It is a case of daylight judicial murder.”

“Office is directed to place this file before the Hon'ble the Chief Justice for taking appropriate action on the administrative side against Trial Judge Shri Jasveer Singh Yadav, the then Civil Judge (Senior Division), Ghaziabad for passing such blatant, dishonest and illegal order”, it ordered.

Advocate Shreya Gupta represented the Appellant while Advocate Ramesh Kumar Singh represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The plaintiff filed an original suit against the defendants with the averments that he is the owner in possession of a plot in Ghaziabad, based on a judgment and decree of the Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division) passed in Indra Mohan Sachdev vs.Smt. Sushila Mehra. The plaintiff further averred that the suit was decreed ex parte, and he was declared the owner of the above plot on the basis of adverse possession, and it was further decreed by the court that the plaintiff was not to be evicted, except by adopting due procedure of law. The Trial Court, on the basis of the decree concluded that the plaintiff was the owner in possession of the disputed property, which had not been set-aside by any competent court and the same was not challenged by the defendants before the appellate court. This judgment was challenged by the defendants by filing an appeal before the High Court.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that the Trial Court had relied on the earlier ex parte decree passed in a suit for decreeing the plaintiff's instant suit. The defendants/appellants filed the copy of death certificate of Sushila Mehra and the photo copy of documents related to the suit Nand Kishore Mehra vs. Sushila Mehra (suit No. 339 of 1992), which disclosed during the pendency of the suit, that she died on April 2, 1996, and for bringing her legal heir on record substitution application was filed by her husband Nand Kishore Mehra in the above suit which was allowed. Ultimately the suit was also decreed ex parte by the Delhi High Court.

The Bench found that the Trial Court had rejected the photocopy of the death certificate of Sushila Mehra on the ground that it was inadmissible in evidence, forgetting that on the basis of that certificate, substitution had already been effected in the suit No. 339 of 1992, and the suit had also been decided. “It is pertinent to mention here that death and birth certificates are never filed in the original because they always remain with the person concerned or his/her legal heirs, and in a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding, only a true copy of them is filed. It is further pertinent to mention here that the defendants being the 3rd parties, could never have benefitted from filing the false death certificate of Sushila Mehra. In view of this, there was no justifiable reason for the trial court to ignore the copy of the death certificate of Sushila Mehra”, it added.

On a perusal of the facts of the case, the Bench stated that the plaintiff's father Parmanand took the disputed property on rental from Sushila Mehra in the year 1969, and according to the plaintiff till the year 1996 he paid rent to Sushila Mehra, but thereafter, since he became owner due to adverse possession, he did not pay any rent to Sushila. The Bench also noted that it was Sushila Mehra who gave possession of the disputed property to the plaintiff's father, which was never handed back to Sushila Mehra or her legal heirs and as such, the plaintiff was not entitled to claim ownership of disputed property based on adverse possession, but still, the original suit was filed and decreed on this ground by the trial court on.

“It is well settled that once having entered the disputed property as a tenant, the tenant is not entitled to claim its ownership on the basis of adverse possession, because the tenant is bound to hand over the vacant possession of the disputed property to the landlord/owner and he cannot deny the title of his landlord in the disputed property”, it mentioned.

As per the Bench, the Trial Court had, in total disregard of the legal provisions and evidence on record, decreed the plaintiff's suit by the impugned judgment, merely based on an earlier decree dated May 31, 2022, which conferred no right, title or interest in the plaintiff regarding the disputed property. The Bench held that the trial court’s reliance on a void decree to grant relief to the plaintiff was inexplicable and legally unsustainable.

Allowing the appeal and ordering action against the Trial Judge, the Bench set aside the impugned judgment and dismissed the plaintiff’s original suit.

Cause Title: Nagar Nigam Ghaziabad v. Indra Mohan Sachdev (Neutral Citation: 2026:AHC:40819)

Appearance

Appellant: Advocate Shreya Gupta

Respondents: Advocates Ramesh Kumar Singh, Shivam Yadav, Vinay Kumar Singh Chandel

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