In a suit for perpetual injunction, the plaintiff must establish the title for the grant of perpetual injunction, especially when necessary pleadings and appropriate issues relating to title are raised and evidence is led by the parties.

JUDGMENT

1. This Civil 2nd Appeal filed by the Appellant was admitted on the following questions of law by this Court vide Order dated 23.05.2018.

I. Whether in a suit for perpetual injunction, it is necessary for the plaintiff to establish the title or he can succeed in getting the relief of perpetual injunction merely be proving the fact that he is in settled possession of the property in question?

II. Whether the Appellant Court committed an error of law in deciding the 1st Appeal in a cursory manner which reflects non-application of mind?

2. For the sake of convenience, the appellant and respondent are proposed to be referred as plaintiff and defendant respectively as they were before the court of first instance.

3. The factual background to the filing of this Appeal is briefly stated that the Plaintiff filed a suit for permanent injunction against the Defendant before the Trial Court with prayer to pass a permanent injunction restraining the Defendant perpetually from causing any interference into her peaceful and bonafide possession of the suit property which was in her physical possession. The Plaintiff claimed that she along with the defendant purchased 02 kanals and 10 marlas of land at Shamasabad Bemina, Srinagar and that she had paid Rs. 2.00 lacs in three instalments for the purchase of the said land; that she being Government Teacher used to pay her monthly salary to the defendant who happened to be her father; that she had invested huge amount in raising the construction of the house on the land and making necessary improvement thereon;

3.1 Plaintiff claimed that both the parties resided together in the house upto 1995 and the defendant on having been retired from Government service in 1995 left the suit house for his native village Chuntimulla Bandipora, where he had his ancestral property and has been residing there with his son since then; that her marriage took place at sector No. 4 Shamasabad, Bemina Srinagar in the suit house itself and all the relatives including the defendant as well as her siblings and other kith and kins participated in her wedding; that though the suit house was owned jointly by the parties but the defendant had gifted away his share in the suit property in favour of the plaintiff, as such, she became absolute owner thereof. It was alleged that the defendant after coming back to Srinagar started residing in one of the rooms of the outhouse and was bent upon to dislodge/dispossess the plaintiff from the suit house and had asked her in presence of her relatives to vacate the house.

3.2 The defendant resisted the claim of the plaintiff in terms of his written statement by stating that the plaintiff has not been residing in the said property for the last 10 years as she was posted Teacher initially at Chuntimulla Primary School in Bandipora, wherefrom, she was transferred to Kunzer, in the year 2002. It was denied that the plaintiff while being posted at Chuntimulla had ever lived in the suit house at Bemina, as being the faraway place; that the plaintiff has wrongly claimed to be owner of the property, that though the defendant has been living in the suit property since 1992, however, he had acquired the title of the suit property by virtue of a sale deed executed on 08.10.1999; that the payment of Rs. 2.00 lacs by the plaintiff to him for the purchase of land measuring 02 kanals 10 marlas or for any other purpose, was denied; that the property was purchased by the defendant in the year 1992 from his own sources of income and thereafter he constructed single storeyed house on the said land from out of his own funds.

3.3 Defendant alleged that the plaintiff had entered his house forcibly and was staying there with her second husband, that the plaintiff being married outside the parental home, was not supposed to live in her father's house; that the property was never gifted by him in favour of the plaintiff; that due to rude behaviour of the plaintiff, he was constrained to disinherit her from his