JASVINDER SINGH Vs. H S GHAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PLAINTIFF filed a suit claiming himself to be owner of 50% share in property no. F-1/2 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi and sought a declaration to this effect from the Court. He also sought a decree for partition of the suit property in two equal parts on the ground that he was owner of 50% share and also prayed decree of permanent injunction against Defendants restraining defendants from selling or alienating the property in any manner. In the suit, he filed an application under Order 39 Rule 1and2 CPC seeking interim injunction against Defendants restraining Defendants from selling alienating or transferring the property. An ex-parte injunction was passed by this Court and defendants were directed to maintain status quo in respect of title and possession of the property on 30th May, 2007. Thereafter, the Defendants filed an application under Order 39 Rule 4 CPC for vacating the ex-parte stay.

(2.) PLAINTIFF has claimed that he was doing business of sale and purchase of various properties along with Defendant No. 2 and Plaintiff and defendant No. 2 used to purchase properties and then sell those properties. It is stated that property no. F-1/2 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, subject matter of this suit, was purchased from Mr. P. C. Mitra, the original allottee of the property and since no Sale Deed could be executed in respect of the property, an agreement to Sell, GPA and Will were executed by Mr. P. C. Mitra in favour of plaintiff and Defendant No. 2. It is stated that Will was executed in favour of the Plaintiff while Agreement to Sell was executed in favour of Defendant No. 2 in respect of the property. Mr. P. C. Mitra expired on 17th January, 1992. Thereafter, Plaintiff filed a Probate Petition in July, 1997 before the District court seeking Probate of Will of Mr. P. C. Mitra dated 2nd December 1991 in his favour and Probate was granted on 22nd March, 1999. Plaintiff claims that he became exclusive owner of the property due to grant of the Probate although he and Defendant no. 2 were owners of the property in equal share. It is further pleaded that property no. F-1/2 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi was in dilapidated state at the time it was sold by Mr. P. C. Mitra and Plaintiff and Defendant No. 1 agreed to get this property re-constructed so that it could be sold. For this purpose Defendant No. 2 entered into an agreement with Defendant No. 3 titled as 'agreement for Construction/collaboration' under which Defendant No. 3 was to make alterations, improvements and re-construction on the said property at her own cost and expenses estimated to be about Rs. 20 lac and in consideration of that, Defendant No. 2 permitted Defendant No. 3 to reap rent of the said premises after completion of the said work for a period of four years. The parties had anticipated that the property would fetch a rent of Rs. 15,000/- per month. After completion of work of construction, Defendant No. 3 let it out to embassy of Sultanate of Oman at a rent of Rs. 60,000/- per month for a period of four years and received entire rent in advance. The lease of the property in favour of the Embassy of Sultanate of Oman was further extended by Defendant No. 2 for another period of 2 years. Embassy vacated premises on 8th November, 2001 and possession of the premises was taken over by Plaintiff and Defendants no. 1 and 2. Thereafter, Defendant No. 3 filed a suit against Plaintiff and defendants no. 1 and 2 alleging that the possession was forcibly taken with the help of gundas and sought permanent injunction and declaration from the Court claiming herself to be an absolute and exclusive owner of the property. It is stated by Plaintiff that since no interim injunction was granted, Defendant No. 3 withdrew the said suit and filed another suit bearing Suit No. 192/2005 for possession, mandatory injunction and for recovery of Rs. 16,88,000/- against plaintiff and Defendants No. 1 and 2. Defendant No. 3 took the stand in this suit that pursuant to the grant of loan of Rs. 40 lac, Plaintiff in conspiracy with Defendant No. 2 had taken all original documents, title deeds of the suit property and had also taken more than 60 blank documents bearing the signatures of Mr. P. C. Mitra and Defendant No. 3. In the said suit, an interim order was granted by the Court in favour of Defendant No. 3 and parties were directed not to create any third party rights in the said property. It is stated that WS was filed on behalf of the Plaintiff by Defendant No. 2 in that case and all pleadings were drafted under the instructions of Defendant No. 2. Plaintiff was having faith in Defendant No. 2 and he kept on signing the pleadings blindly without reading. In the pleadings, Plaintiff later on learnt that there was no mention of Probate obtained by Plaintiff in his favour and the Plaintiff also stated that he had no concern with the said suit property. It is stated by plaintiff that misstatement of facts on the part of Plaintiff was manged by defendant No. 2 herein as he was looking after the litigation in the suit filed by Defendant No. 3 against the Plaintiff and other Defendants and Plaintiff had been signing replies and WS etc. on the instructions of Defendant No. 2 having blind faith in him.

(3.) PLAINTIFF has mentioned about other property of Malcha Marg and stated that Plaintiff and Defendant No. 1 were joint owners of Malcha Marg and they had sold their respective shares to the third parties. It is stated that defendant No. 1 became dishonest with the purchaser of his share of the Malcha marg property and filed a suit against the purchaser and later on compromised the suit only after he received Rs. 1 crore from the purchaser. On this incident, Plaintiff became suspicious of the intentions of Defendants No. 1 and 2 and asked them to execute written documents in respect of the property no. F-1/2 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi. Defendants no. 1 and 2 started dillydallying and did not execute any document in respect of the property in question. The plaintiff suspected that Defendant No. 1 had become dishonest and had intentions to grab the suit property as he had earlier become dishonest in respect of malcha Marg property. He, thereafter, engaged another counsel and inspected the file of Suit No. 192/2005 and learnt that WS and other proceedings filed on his behalf stated that he had no right in the property no. F-1/2 Vasant Vihar, New delhi. The Plaintiff was taking steps to amend his WS in that suit.