Co-sharer suppressing own construction on joint land approaches without clean hands and cannot restrain others from constructing on their exclusive portion; injunction requires proof of prejudice or ouster, not mere jointness.

The present petitions have arisen out the judgment as passed by learned Additional District Judge-I, Una, District Una, H.P. dated 27.03.2025, whereby the appeals preferred by the defendants/respondents have been allowed and consequently, the application filed by the plaintiff/ petitioner under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 of CPC has been ordered to be dismissed and the application filed by the defendants/respondents for the vacation of stay has been allowed by passing a common judgment.

2. The judgment as passed by the learned first appellate Court reversed the findings/order as passed by learned Senior Civil Judge, Court No.1, Amb, whereby the application filed by the plaintiff/petitioner under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 CPC was allowed and the application filed by the defendants/respondents under Order 39 Rule 4 read with Section 151 of CPC for vacation of stay order was rejected.

3. Brief facts of the case are that the petitioner/plaintiff filed a suit for permanent prohibitory injunction, restraining the defendants/respondents from raising any sort of construction, changing the nature, alienation or transferring any land more than their share or any specific portion or specific khasra number of the same and also from delivering possession of any specific khasra number over the suit land in the Court of learned Senior Civil Judge, Court No.1, Amb, District Una. It was averred in the plaint that the parties are co-sharers over the suit land and the defendants/respondents, who are very clever, head strong persons of the village, have no respect for law, have started extending illegal threats to change the nature, raise the construction of their own in an arbitrary manner to the detriment of the plaintiff/petitioner. Further, it was averred that the defendants/respondents are threatening to deliver the possession of specific portion by boundaries to the third party/purchaser and the defendants/respondents are bent upon to alienate, transfer the best and valuable portion of the suit property in order to harass the plaintiff/petitioner. Further, it was pleaded that co-sharers have no right to change the nature of the suit land till the time the joint suit land is partitioned by metes and bounds. Therefore, the suit for permanent prohibitory injunction, restraining the defendants/respondents from raising any kind of construction, changing the nature, alienation or transferring any land exceeding to the share of the defendants over the specific portion was sought from the learned trial Court.

4. The suit was contested by the defendants/respondents by raising various preliminary objections with respect to maintainability, cause of action, estoppel, suppression etc. in the written statement. On merits, it was averred in the written statement that Khasra Nos.2202 and 2205 are owned by both the parties along with other co-sharers, but the same are in exclusive possession of the defendants/respondents through the family settlement between the defendants/respondents and their relatives and co-sharers except the plaintiff/petitioner. It was pleaded that the entries of exclusive possession shown in Farad Jamabandi in the Khatoni No.829 are only in favour of the defendants/respondents as well as in the name of their grandmother, namely, Shiv Devi, who has now died.

5. The plaintiff/petitioner has no concern with the land measuring 00-