JUDGMENT - V.A. MOHTA, J.:---Has a Civil Court jurisdiction to issue at an interlocutory stage a mandatory injunction as so to restore the status quo anterior to the date of institution of a suit, is a point that falls for determinat on in this civil revision application.

2. In my view, answer to this question has to be recorded in the affirmative: Here are my reasons. The subject of temporary injunction is mainly covered by Order 39, Rules 1 and 2, Code of Civil Procedure. In cases not covered by those provisions, an appropriate temporary injunction can be granted also in exercise of inherrent power of a Court under section 151, Code of Civil Procedure. After all Order 39, Rules 1 and 2 are not exhaustive of the circumstances under which interim injunction can be granted. The controversy on that aspect of the matter is set at rest by a majority decision of the Supreme Court in the leading case of (Manoharlal v. Seth Hiralal)1, A.I.R. 1962 S.C. 527. But that apart the language employed in those two rules is clearly wide enough to include an order in the form of a mandatory injunction and admits of no exception with reference to a point of time to which it can be made. Injunctions are a form of equitable relief and they have to be adjusted or moulded in aid of equity and justice to the facts and circumstances of each particular case. Jurisdiction is thus undoubted even under Order 39, Rules 1 and 2. Even if it cannot be granted under the said rules, section 151 is the source of such jurisdiction. I see no reason to lay down an absolute proposition and forge unnecessary and unjustified fetters on the power of the equity Courts to grant appropriate relief even in a well deserving case and reduce its position only to a willing but helpless spectator-a situation not warranted by our equity jurisprudence.

3. Undoubtedly, power to issue mandatory injunction at an interlocutory stage is not to be exercised lightly or commonly. Ordering maintenance of status quo as on the date of the suit as an interim measure is rare and rarer still is the order of maintenance of status quo as on the date anterior to the institution of suit. But existence of jurisdiction and its proper exercise are two distinct topics.

4. Precedents where such injunctions are granted are not many but they do exist. In the case of (Goverdhan Singh v. Mulkh Raj)2, A.I.R. 1973 Jammu Kashmir 63, the power of the Civil Court to grant interim mandatory injunction ordering the defendant-landlord to reconstruct the demolished wall and to make the premises habitable was recognised. In the case of (Ganpathi Reddy v. Duvvuri Chinnapa Reddy)3, 1977(1) Andhra Weekly Reporter 62 power to issue mandatory temporary injunction ordering reopening of a sluice through which bath water passed in the lane which was closed three months prior to the date of the suit was recognised. It is observed.

"The main greivence of the learned Advocate for the petitioners was that a mandatory injunction cannot be granted so as to restore the status quo prior to the institution of the suit, but there is no such limitation on the Court's power to grant a mandatory injunction of that nature in an appropriate case, particularly when the status quo ante has been altered shortly prior to the suit and that Act it self was the direct and proximate cause as a result of which the suit came to be filed".

5. My attention was drawn by the learned Counsel for the applicant to the case of (Rasul Karim v. Pirbhai Amirbhai)4, A.I.R. 1914 Bombay 42 in which it has been held that power to issue mandatory injunction is not within the ambit of Order 39, Rule 1. In that case even the power of a mofussil Court in India to issue such mandatory injunction was doubted. But that is no more a good law. Very soon the said view met with disapproval in the case of (Champsey Bhimji Co., v. Jamna Flour Mills Co. Ltd.)5, A.I.R. 1914 Bombay 195. The case of (Malla Suranna v. Kalla Somulu)6, A.I.R. 1969 A.P. 368 on which reliance has been

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