Court emphasized the necessity for specific findings on status quo applications in property disputes, underscoring thorough assessment by the lower court amid ongoing appeals.

JUDGMENT (Oral)

1. Heard learned Counsel for both sides. With consent of learned Counsel, this petition is being disposed of.

2. This petition, under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, assails an order dated 7th April, 2022, passed by the learned Additional District Judge (the learned ADJ) disposing of an application filed by the petitioner (as the appellant before the learned ADJ) under Section 157 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC).

3. As learned Counsel for both sides are agreeable to this matter being remanded to the learned ADJ to return a proper finding on the prayer in the petitioner's application, no detailed allusion to facts is necessary. A brief recital would suffice.

4. Against order dated 23rd December, 2019, passed by the learned Additional Senior Civil Judge (the learned ASCJ), on an application preferred by the petitioner under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the CPC, the petitioner appealed to the learned ADJ vide MCA/DJ/3/20.

5. Suit 1492/19 (Kulbir Sahi v. UOI & Ors.), in which the order dated 23rd December, 2019 came to be passed by the learned ASCJ, was instituted by the petitioner against the respondents. The petitioner alleged that, by way of adverse possession, his title over the property bearing House No. 2087/B-2, Gali No. 19, Prem Nagar, New Delhi (hereinafter "the suit property"), stood perfected. The petitioner also asserted that the property stood mutated in his name. Expressing his grievance at the alleged threat, held out by the respondents, to demolish the suit property, the petitioner instituted the aforesaid Suit No. 1492/19 against the respondents, for a restraint against the respondents from dispossessing the petitioner from, or demolishing, the suit property.

6. An application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the CPC, seeking interlocutory injunction was also filed by the petitioner alongwith Suit 1492/19.

7. The said application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2, filed by the petitioner, was dismissed by the learned ASCJ vide order dated 23rd February, 2019 supra. The learned ASCJ held, while dismissing the application, that action for removal of the petitioner's construction, treating it as an encroachment, had already been undertaken and the construction had been removed. Accordingly, it was held that there was no occasion to restrain the respondents from demolishing the petitioner's property. The relief sought by the petitioner, accordingly, had become infructuous, in the opinion of the learned ASCJ.

8. Aggrieved, the petitioner, as already noted, appealed to the learned ADJ vide MCA/DJ/03/2020 (Kulbir Sahi v. UOI & Anr.).

9. Accompanying the appeal was an application, filed by the petitioner, for interlocutory relief, which has come to be disposed of by the impugned order dated 7th April, 2022. The application complained that Respondent 2 was illegally seeking to remove malba from the premises and to construct a boundary wall. Even while acknowledging the fact that demolition action already stood taken by the respondents, the application voiced the apprehension that any further disturbance of the status quo, in respect of the suit property, would dilute, and result in defeating, the case of the petitioner against the respondents. In order that the petitioner's case be not further prejudiced, the application sought a direction to the respondents to maintain status quo with respect to the suit property, pending disposal of MCA/DJ/03/2020.

10. The said application has been disposed of by the learned ADJ vide the impugned order dated 7th April, 2022 which, to the extent it is relevant, reads thus: