Maintainability of the revision petition to the High Court.

K.M. Natarajan, J.

1. The unnumbered revision petition with the connected C.M.Ps. is posted before this Court for deciding as to its maintainability. The revision is filed by defendants 1 and 2 in O.S. No. 55 of 1987 on the file of the Subordinate Judge, Pondicherry, on being aggrieved by an interim order passed by the Court below in I.A. No. 891 of 1987 under Order 39, Rules 1 and 2, Civil Procedure Code read with Section 151, Civil Procedure Code. The said order runs as follows:

The interim injunction is modified and restricted against sale, mortgage or make any alteration only in the suit properties pending enquiry in the I.A. This order is without prejudice to rights of parties in the suit. Call on 13.4.1987.

The petitioners challenged the said order on the ground that the Court below erred in not considering the counter affidavit filed by the second petitioner (second defendant) while continuing the earlier Ex Parte order which was granted without giving any reasons, and that the plaintiff has no Prima Facie case for asking for injunction. As against the said order, they preferred the revision before this Court. The Office returned the papers stating that the interlocutory application is kept pending that the petitioners can move the lower Court itself for setting aside the order, that any order passed under Order 39, Rules 1 and 2, C.P.C. is only appealable and that the appeal will lie only in the District Court and not a revision in the High Court. Further, no revision or appeal lies against an interim order passed by the Court below.

2. Learned Counsel for the petitioners relied on the decision of this Court reported in Sundaram Pillai v. Govindasami, and submitted that this Court interfered with the erroneous order of interim mandatory injunction passed by the trial Court and that the same principle is to be applied to this case also. On going through the said judgment, I find that the said decision is not applicable to the case of the petitioners. It is seen from para 8 of the said judgment that the effect of the impugned order is that the suit filed by the plaintiff substantially stands decreed on the very day on which the suit has been filed at the end of the day. Further, the learned Chief Justice came to the conclusion that the said order is perverse and has been obtained by suppressing material facts and as such interference under Section 115, C.P.C. is necessitated to set aside the order which amounts to an abuse of the powers vested in the trial. Court and that by one stroke of the pen of the learned Judge, the defendants have been summarily divested of the ownership of the shares in question of the value of more than Rs. 10,00,000. Only in that view, the power under Section 115, C.P.C. was exercised in view of the extraordinary circumstances of the case.

3. On the other hand, we have to see the various decisions of this Court on this point regarding maintainability of revision. A Division Bench of this Court in Abdul Shukoor v. Umachander, 89 L.W. 330 : A.I.R. 1976 Mad. 350, consisting of Ramaprasada Rao, J. (as he then was) and Ratnavel Pandian, J. held:

No appeal will lie against an Ex Parte ad interim injunction but the specific remedy available in Order 39, Rule 4, C.P.C. has to be availed of by the interdicted party so that a final reasoned order could be obtained in the trial Court itself against which the Code has provided an obvious appeal under Order 43, Rule 1(r), C.P.C.

That was also a case where the question arose whether an appeal or a revision is maintainable against the Ex Parte Interim order, and the same was decided after giving notice to the Bar Association, Advocates Association and other Associations by the Division Bench of this Court. The above case was also referred to in the judgment in Sundaram Pillai v. Govindasami, relied on by the learned Counsel for the petitioners. The learned Chief Justice also accepted the proposition of law laid down therein. It is also significant to note that