Executing courts can restore possession even after a decree of prohibitory injunction has been violated, ensuring compliance with judicial orders.

ORDER :

1. By way of the present Civil Revision Petition No.145/2025, the petitioner has assailed the order dated 09.07.2025 passed by the learned Civil Judge (Jr. Dn.), Sri Ganganagar in Civil Execution Case No.30/2023, whereby the application dated 17.10.2023 preferred by the petitioner–judgment-debtor raising objections to the maintainability of the execution proceedings was rejected, and the learned Executing Court proceeded further under the provisions of Order XXI Rule 32(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

2. The dispute has its genesis in a civil suit for declaration and permanent injunction instituted by the predecessor-in- interest of the respondents, namely late Chunnilal, before the learned Civil Judge (Jr. Dn.), Sri Ganganagar, registered as Civil Suit No.566/1995. The suit pertained to agricultural land situated in Chak No.16 ML, Murabba No.10, Kila Nos.1 to 8, measuring 8 Bighas, wherein the plaintiffs sought to restrain the defendants from interfering with their possession and further prayed that any document, such as partition or will executed by Bhinraj in favour of the defendants, be declared void and ineffective.

3. The learned trial court, vide judgment and decree dated 12.11.1999, partly decreed the suit by granting a relief of permanent injunction restraining the defendants, including the present petitioner, from interfering with the plaintiffs’ possession over the crops standing on the suit land till the decision of the allotment proceedings by the competent authority.

4. Upon appeal, the learned Additional District Judge No.1, Sri Ganganagar, vide judgment dated 24.09.2003, set aside the trial court’s decree. However, in further challenge, this Court, vide judgment dated 13.12.2013 in S.B. Civil Second Appeal No.285/2003, allowed the appeal, set aside the appellate judgment, and restored the trial court’s decree dated 12.11.1999.

5. Nearly a decade thereafter, the respondents–legal heirs of late Chunnilal initiated Execution Petition No.30/2023 seeking enforcement of the decree dated 12.11.1999. It was alleged that the present petitioner had, in violation of the decree, taken unlawful possession of the suit land about two years prior to the filing of the execution petition, with the aid of anti-social elements, and that restoration of possession was warranted.

6. The petitioner–judgment-debtor entered appearance and filed objections, inter alia, contending that the execution petition suffered from non-joinder of necessary parties as other judgment-debtors were not impleaded; that the decree under execution was limited to an injunction and did not contain any direction for delivery of possession; that the executing court was not competent to enlarge the scope of the decree; and that the proper remedy, if any, lay in initiating contempt proceedings rather than execution.

7. The learned Civil Judge, after hearing both sides, rejected the petitioner’s objections vide the impugned order dated 09.07.2025, which has occasioned the present revision.

8. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the impugned order, the record of the case, and the cited precedents.

9. It is trite that the jurisdiction of an executing court is confined to enforcing the decree as it stands and it cannot travel beyond its terms. The decree dated 12.11.1999 was one of prohibitory injunction, restraining the defendants from interfering with the plaintiffs’ possession until decision of allotment proceedings. The petitioner’s contention is that such a decree does not warrant delivery of possession in execution.

10. However, where a decree of prohibitory injunction has been rendered nugatory by the willful and unlawful act of the judgment-debtor particularly dispossessio