The legal principle established is that a plaintiff who voluntarily executes a contract of sale, puts the proposed vendee in possession of the property, and receives the entire consideration money, cannot claim the property after a long time. The court also emphasized the discretionary nature of interlocutory injunctions and the limitations on the powers of the Appellate Court to substitute its own discretion in an appeal preferred against a discretionary order.

JUDGMENT :

1. The appellants, through the medium of present appeal, seek setting aside of the order dated 17.02.2016, hereinafter for short as impugned order, passed by the learned Principal District Judge, Pulwama, for short trial court, in a civil suit titled Farooq Ahmad Shah v. Feroz Ahmad Shah & Ors., on the grounds taken in the memo of appeal.

BRIEF FACTS

2. The case of the appellant, precisely, is that he had filed a suit for declaration, specific performance of contract and permanent injunction before the trial court accompanied with an application for grant of ad-interim relief. The appellant had pleaded that 5 marlas of land under survey No. 1294/Min situated at Rajpora Ullar were purchased by him from the respondent no. 1 against a consideration amount of Rs. 50,000/- which he paid to respondent no. 3 on the directions of respondent no. 1. An advance payment of Rs. 10,000/- was paid to the respondent no. 1 and the remaining amount was to be paid at the time of registration of sale deed. Pursuant to such purchase the appellant is stated to have dumped some construction material on the spot to start construction of a mosque. The said construction was opposed by the respondent no. 2 for having purchased the said piece of land from respondent no. 1 against a consideration amount of Rs. 70,000/- out of which Rs. 60,000/-has already been paid to the respondent no. 1 and a sale deed dated 13.09.2013 stands registered in this behalf.

3. The appellant had raised a plea before the trial court that the sale deed executed by respondent no. 1 with respondent no. 2 in respect of the land in question is inoperative insofar as the appellant is concerned.

4. The respondents in their written statement had denied the claim of the appellant.

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6. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the material made available.

7. Admittedly, the appellant projects himself as a prospective owner of the land in question on the basis of a verbal promise allegedly having been extended to him by the respondent no. 1, the owner of the land, while as the respondent no. 2 claims to be the owner having purchased the land in question pursuant to a sale deed executed by the respondent no. 1 with respondent no. 2 on 13.09.2013 registered by the competent authority. The learned counsel for the appellant submits that the appellant has been prejudiced by the impugned order as the trial court failed to appreciate the fact that he is in possession of the land in question and has paid the advance amount of the sale consideration. The learned counsel further submits that the Full Bench of this Court in case titled Gh. Qadir & Anr. v. Gh. Hussain reported as 2010 (8) JKJ 136[HC] & Julien Education Trust v. Sourendra Kumar Roy (2010) 1 SCC 379. It would be profitable to reproduce paragraph no. 10 and 11 of the Full Bench judgment of this court herein, thus:-

"10. We find ourselves in complete agreement with the observations made by their Lordships in the aforesaid case. It is manifestly clear that where the plaintiff voluntarily executes a contract of sale puts the proposed vendee in possession of the property and receives the entire consideration money, there is no special equity in his favour to allow him to turn around and claim the property after a long time merely because the price of the property has increased. He cannot be allowed to repudiate the judiciary obligation arising out of the contract nor can the Court aid him to commit fraud by dispossessing a prospective vendee who has done all that was required of him to do for purchasing the property.

11. For these reasons we find that even though the possession of the defendant may be permissive, since the plaintiff has received the entire consideration money and allowed the position to be changed to the prejudice of the defendant, he will be estopped from repudiating the sale transaction and recovering possession from the defendant. On ground alone, in our opinion, the defendant is entitled to succeed."

(Emph