Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Introduction:

1. A person is in settled possession of an immovable property: a flat in an apartment. That person in possession claims he has been inducted as a prospective purchaser under an agreement; the landlady, on the contrary, claims he is inducted for a limited period—given permissive possession. Apprehending eviction, he sues for an injunction but gets no interim protection. Later, a mob of people, believed to belong to the landlady, storms the house. The police intervene.

2. The police intervention leads to one thing: the person loses his possession. The person claims he is locked out by none other than the police. The police claim they have pacified the parties and left the scene. The landlady claims the person in possession voluntarily vacated. Where does the truth lie?

3. The above controversy compels us to answer these questions: (1) Has the person in possession been forcefully and illegally dispossessed? Have the police abetted the illegal dispossession? Or, has the person voluntarily vacated the flat? If the person has been forcefully thrown out, then these further questions need to be answered: (1) Must the dispossessed person be put back in possession of the flat? And (2) should the police account for their conduct?

The Controversy:

4. As pleaded by the petitioner, fifth respondent Roshina and her husband, both living abroad, are the owners of a flat in an apartment at Kozhikode. Hameed Haji and Abdul Rahim, the fifth and sixth respondents, being Roshina’s father and father-in-law respectively, have been intermeddling with the property.

5. In course of time, Hameed Haji and Abdul Raheem, on behalf of Roshina and her husband, contracted with Abdul Azeez to sell the flat. By way of part performance, they put Azeez in possession of the property. Azeez claims he has paid substantial amounts towards the sale consideration, but Hameed Haji and Abdul Raheem, or the true owners for that matter, have failed to execute “an assignment deed” in Azeez’s favour despite his repeated demands.

6. When Hameed Haji and Abdul Raheem, as well as Roshina’s husband, tried to evict Azeez unlawfully, he filed OS No. 807 of 2014 before the Munsiff Court, Kozhikode, seeking a perpetual injunction. The Advocate-Commissioner appointed in that suit filed Exhibit P2 report attesting to the fact that Azeez and his family had been residing in the flat.

7. When Azeez was away, attending to his daughter undergoing surgery, on 20th April 2017 Hameed Haji and Abdul Raheem, along with 20 persons “broke open” into the apartment and demanded Azeez’s wife, then alone in the house, to vacate it immediately.

8. Helpless, Azeez’s wife called him, and he, in turn, called the police control room at Kozhikode, which alerted the fourth respondent Sub-Inspector of Kasaba police station. Soon, the SI of Kasaba police station and also the SI of Police Control Room, along with police force, including women constables and patrolling team, visited the scene.

9. Instead of preventing the illegal eviction, the police, it is alleged, facilitated the perpetrators: the SI of Police Control Room, the eight respondent, arrayed eo nominee as ninth respondent, asked Azeez’s wife to leave the house, locked it with all the luggage inside, and took the key away to the controlling room. With this, Azeez’s son studying standard XII missed his engineering entrance examination because even the hall ticket had been locked in.

10. After realising that the police had acted hand in glove with Hameed Haji and Abdul Raheem, Azeez’s wife, on the same day, complained to the Commissioner of Police, Kozhikode. Despite all this, the police never registered a crime. Back in Kozhikode, the next day, Azeez further complained to the Additional Director General of Police (North Zone), Kozhikode. Though the police had summoned Azeez and his wife to the police station often, they never returned the key; it remained with Mohanan, the SI of Control Room.

11. In the above factua