The main legal point established in the judgment is the determination of the maintainability of a Letters Patent Appeal under Section 104 or Article 226 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.

Dhiraj Singh Thakur, J.:-

1. The present Letters Patent Appeal has been preferred against the judgment and order 7.3.2014 passed by the learned Single Judge in a petition under Section 104 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. With a view to understand the background in the light of which the present controversy has arisen, it is necessary to give a few facts in brief.

2. Appellant-plaintiff before the trial court filed a suit for permanent prohibitory injunction for restraining the defendants-respondents from causing interference in regard to land measuring 1 kanal comprised in khasra No. 570/205 situate at Katra.

3. The trial court temporarily restrained the defendants-respondents from interfering with the ownership and possession of the plaintiff-appellant herein over the suit land and subsequently after hearing both the sides vide order dated 13.8.2010 made absolute the interim injunction earlier granted.

4. The respondents challenged the aforementioned order in Civil 1st Miscellaneous Appeal No. 90 before the court of learned District Judge, Reasi, who after hearing both the sides allowed the appeal vide its order dated 22.12.2012 and by modifying the earlier order passed by the trial court, directed the parties to maintain status quo till final disposal of the suit. This order was challenged by the petitioner before a single bench of this court under Section 104 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, invoking the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court.

5. Notwithstanding the fact that the petition was one filed under Section 104 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, yet it appears that the counsel for the petitioner-appellant herein urged before the writ court that the court could also interfere with the order impugned by exercising the extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 and issuing a writ of certiorari in that regard.

6. The writ court upon consideration of the issue did not deem it appropriate to interfere with the order passed by the court below in the light of the ratio of the judgment laid down by the Apex Court in Waryam Singh and another v. Amarnath and another, AIR 1954 SC 215 followed by Shalini Shyam Shetty and another v. Rajendra Shankar Patil, (2010) 8 SCC 329.

7. The learned Single Judge, in fact, deemed it appropriate that the disputed property be preserved till the final disposal of the lis by not interfering with the order of status quo, which was passed by the court below.

8. On the issue of exercise of extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 by issuance of a writ of certiorari and quashing the order passed by the learned District Judge, the learned Single Judge was pleased to reject the prayer on the ground that even with the exercise of writ jurisdiction even under Article 226, the order did not deserve any interference.

9. It is this judgment and order that has been questioned by way of the present Letters Patent Appeal.

10. A Letters Patent Appeal against a judgment and order passed by the High Court in exercise of its supervisory jurisdiction under Section 104 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir is barred in terms of Clause 12 of the Letters Patent, which is reproduced hereunder:

"12. And we do further ordain that an appeal shall lie to the said High Court of Judicature from the judgment (not being a judgment passed in exercise of appellate jurisdiction in respect of a decree or order made in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction by a court subject to the superintendence of the said High Court, and not being an order made in the exercise of revisional jurisdiction, and not being a sentence or order passed or made in the exercise of the powers of superintendence) of one judge of the said High Court or one Judge of any Division Court and that notwithstanding anything hereinbefore provided an appeal shall lie to the said High Court from a judgment of "one Judge of the said High Court or one Judge of any Division Court, consistently with the provisions of the Civil Pr