The Supreme Court held that while considering an appeal against the order of the Trial Court refusing to grant an injunction pending the disposal of the suit, the High Court can’t dismiss the substantive portion of the suit itself and direct that the remaining part of the suit be agitated in a suit filed by the defendant.

The Apex Court was considering an appeal against an order of the High Court virtually dismissing the suit while considering an application for an injunction.

The Division Bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Joymalya Bagchi held, “In an appeal to the High Court against the order of the Trial Court refusing to grant injunction pending disposal of the suit, the High Court could not have dismissed the substantive portion of the suit itself and direct that the remaining part of the suit be agitated in a suit filed by the defendant. The approach adopted by the High Court is completely illegal and unsustainable in law.”

Advocate Amol Chitale represented the Appellant while Advocate Satyajit A Desai represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

Three brothers, namely, Magruram Chotanki Gupta, Deepnarayan Chotanki Gupta and Baburam Chotanki Gupta, were co-tenants of the suit property. The appellants are descendants of Magruram Chotanki Gupta, while the first respondent is the descendant of Deepnarayan Chotanki Gupta. The case as presented by the appellant was that by a notarized affidavit, Deepnarayan Chotanki Gupta (respondent’s predecessor) transferred his rights in the tenanted premises to their predecessor-in-interest. Subsequently, after Deepnarayan’s death, his widow signed a declaration relinquishing her rights in the suit property in favor of the first appellant.

Relying on these documents, the appellants/ plaintiffs filed a suit for declaration and permanent injunction, in which their prayer for interim relief of a temporary injunction came to be dismissed by the Trial Court. In appeal, the High Court virtually dismissed the suit. Aggrieved thereby, the appellants approached the Apex Court.

Reasoning

The Bench highlighted certain portions of the impugned order which were not only inconsistent with one another but were also inappropriate and contrary to law.The High Court had concluded that the other defendants had accepted that the first defendant was the owner and, as such, they couldn’t dispossess the appellants/ plaintiffs pending the disposal of the first respondent’s suit for possession. For this reason, the High Court reiterated its conclusion that an injunction must be granted in favour of the appellants.

However, the High Court then came to a strange conclusion that the agreements, relied on by the appellants for a declaratory relief, couldn’t be taken on record as they were unregistered and an order or decree couldn’t be granted in the appellants’ favor, given Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908. The Bench thus observed, “The above referred conclusion was completely unwarranted. There was no occasion for the High Court to consider the two documents while deciding an application for interim relief. The legality, validity, and admissibility of those documents were matters to be considered in the suit during trial.”

The Apex Court also made it clear that the High Court could not have dismissed the substantive portion of the suit itself and directed that the remaining part of the suit be agitated in a suit filed by the defendant. Thus, allowing the appeals, the Bench set aside the judgment of the High Court and restored the suit filed by the appellants to its original number.

“Pending disposal of this suit, there shall be a direction restraining the respondents-defendants from dispossessing the appellants”, it concluded.

Cause Title: Mahendra Magruram Gupta & Anr. v. Rajdai Shaw & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 651)

Appearance:

Appellant: Advocates Amol Chitale, Sarthak Sharma, AOR Pragya Baghel

Respondent: Advocates Satyajit A Desai, Amit K. Pathak, Abhinav K. Mutyalwar, Siddharth Gautam, Sachin Singh, Ananya Thapliyal, AOR Anagha S. Desai, Siddhant Singh, Pratik Kumar Singh, Chirag M. Shroff

Click here to read/download Order


Justice Pamidighantam Sri NarasimhaJustice Joymalya Bagchi

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.