HARI RAM Vs. RAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order will dispose of RSA Nos. 2855 and 2856 of 1995 as identical questions of law and fact are involved for adjudication. For facility of reference, facts are taken from RSA No. 2855 of 1995.

(2.) The appellants-plaintiffs filed the suit for permanent injunction restraining the defendants from interfering in their peaceful possession over land measuring more than 111 kanals, detailed in head note of the plaint, except in due course of law. Suit filed by the plaintiffs was partly decreed and defendants-respondents were restrained from interfering in possession of the plaintiffs over land bearing khasra Nos. 1248 (0-10) and 1249(2-9). The judgment and decree passed by the trial court resulted in filing of two appeals, one by the plaintiffs and other by the defendants. Both the appeals were decided by the Additional District Judge, Hoshiarpur vide judgment and decree dated 4.8.1995. Appeal preferred by the appellants-plaintiffs was dismissed but appeal filed by respondents- defendants was allowed. Eventually, suit filed by the appellants-plaintiffs for grant of permanent injunction was dismissed in toto, leaving the parties to bear their own costs.

(3.) Counsel for the appellants would argue that he confines his prayer for affirmation of the judgment and decree passed by the trial court whereby permanent injunction was granted in respect of land comprising the aforesaid khasra numbers. It is argued that the First Appellate Court grossly erred by holding that the present suit is barred under Order 9 Rule 9 and 23 Rule 1 of the Civil Procedure Code (in short "the Code"). It is argued that previously the appellants filed a suit for declaration and injunction in respect of the suit land and the same was dismissed under Order 9 Rule 8 of the Code. The appellants filed an application for restoration of the suit. It is further argued that since the appellants-plaintiffs apprehended immediate threat of their dispossession from the suit land, there accrued a fresh cause of action to institute suit for injunction and as such the provisions of Order 9 Rule 9 or 23 Rule 1 of the Code are not attracted, thus, have wrongly been applied by the Court in Appeal.