The State is liable for persistent acts of its officers in disobeying the order of Injunction.

Kamla Sahai, J.

1. This application by the plaintiff is directed against an order of the 3rd Additional District Jugde of Muzaffarpur dated the 25th September, 1962.

2. The necessary facts may be shortly stated. Admittedly a Government hat is held on plot No. 3532. The plaintiff has two raiyati plots, viz., Plots Nos. 3530 and 3531, close to plot No. 3532. The plaintiff has instituted Title Suit No. 132 of 1961 in the Munsif 1st Court at Muzaffarpur. He has alleged in that suit that a hat is held on his two raiyati plots. He has also alleged that officers of the Government, including the Block Development Officer, Sahra, disturb the holding of the hat by the plaintiff in his two plots, and drive out the hawkers. Among the reliefs which he has prayed for in the plaint is for the issue of a permanent injunction restraining the defendants, the State and the Block Development Officer, from disturbing the hat held in survey plots Nos. 3530 and 3531 by driving out the shop keepers and hawkers therefrom forcibly and also from forbidding the plaintiff from holding his hat as he has been doing.

After the suit was filed, the plaintiff filed a petition graying for ad interim injunction in the same terms in which he has claimed his relief for issue of a permanent injunction in his plaint. His prayer was granted by an order dated the 3rd June, 1961. The injunction order was served on the 6th June. On the 10th June, the plaintiff filed a petition in which he alleged that certain officers of the Government had infringed the order of injunction, on the 6th June and the 9th June, 1961. He prayed for action against the offending officers under Order XXXIX, Rule 2(3) of the Code of Civil Procedure. He again filed a petition on the 15th June to the effect that some officers had violated the order or injunction again on the 13th June.

3. The learned Additional District Judge has held that it was not proved that the Block Development Officer ever violated the order of injunction; but, in coming to this conclusion, he has not taken into consideration the allegations relating to the incidents which took place on the 13th June. He has also held that, since the plaintiff had proceeded only against the State and the Block Development Officer, it was not necessary for him to consider whether other officers of the Government had infringed the order of injunction.

4. Another finding which he has arrived at is that the State has not been shown to be responsible for any violation.

5. Appearing on behalf of the petitioner, Mr. Kaushal Kishore Sinha has urged that this is a fit case for remand because the learned Additional District Judge has not taken into consideration various matters which he should have taken into consideration. I agree that the learned Additional District Judge should have considered also the allegations relating to the incidents on the 13th June. It seems to me also that the learned Additional District Judge has erred in not taking into consideration the allegations made against some officers and men that they violated the order of injunction. It was not necessary for them to have been impleaded as defendants. They could still be proceeded against under Order 39, Rule 2(3) of the Code of Civil Procedure if they were shown to have been agents and servants of the State and to have violated the order of injunction, in spite or knowledge that there was such an order. In this connection, I may also rsfer to an observation of Ayyangar, J. in State of Bihar v. Rani Sonabati Kumari, 1961 BUR 285 at p. 294 (AIR 1961 SC 221 at pp. 229-230) as follows:

"Under the law when an order of injunction is passed, that order is binding on and enforceable not merely against the person eo nomine impleaded as a party to the suit and against whom the order is passed but against the agents and servants, etc., of such a party. If that were not the law, orders of injunction would be rendered nugatory, by their being contravened by the agents and servants o