The main legal point established in the judgment is that an application under Order XV Rule 3 CPC for passing a decree in a suit without a trial can be dismissed if there are major triable issues present in the suit, such as property description, undervaluation, and adverse possession.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Application filed under Order XIV Rule 8 of the High Court Original Side Rules 1956 read with Order 15 Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, praying to hear and dispose of the present suit without any evidence being led by the parties.)

1. 1 The suit is laid for recovery of possession of the suit property from the defendants. The plaintiffs have taken out an application under Order XV Rule 3 CPC to decree the suit without trial in view of the fact that title of the first plaintiff over the property in lis had been conclusively decided against the defendants in the earlier rounds of litigation.

2. The brief facts are:

* The suit property is described as Plot No.2155, measuring 5,390 sq.ft., comprised in S.F.No.207 part, correlated to T.Sy.No.61, Block No.19, L - Block, Anna Nagar Colony West, Chennai.

* According to the plaintiffs, this property originally belonged to a certain Lalithambal. Sometime in the mid 1960s, this property along with others were acquired for the benefit of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB), and that on 17.11.1965, declaration under Sec. 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, came to be published. On 21.03.1991 a provisional allotment of the aforesaid plot was made to the first plaintiff (hereinafter would be referred to by his name Balakrishnan), that it was followed by a regular allotment on 03.05.1991, and on 13.03.1992, the TNHB had formally handed over the possession of the property to Balakrishnan.

* In terms of the allotment, Balakrishnan too had paid the price of the plot in instalments to the TNHB, pursuant to which on 15.5.1996, the TNHB had executed a sale deed in favour of the former.

* In the same year (1996), the first defendant herein (will be referred to by his name Amudan) had laid a suit in O.S.No.188 of 1996 on the file of VI Assistant City Civil Court, for mandatory injunction against TNHB to cancel the allotment made by it to Balakrishnan, who was arrayed as the second defendant in the said suit.

* During the pendency of the suit, Amudan also instituted a second suit in O.S.No.4141 of 1997 before the City Civil Court for bare injunction against Balakrishnan, in which Amudan described the plot in question as a vacant site. On 15.03.1999, this suit came to be dismissed as not pressed.

* Even as O.S.No.4141 of 1997 was pending, Amudan had approached this Court in WP.No.4190 of 1997, inter alia against the TNHB and Balakrishnan for a writ of mandamus to forbear them from interfering with his alleged possession of the plot involved. On 04.02.2000, this writ petition was dismissed as withdrawn but without any liberty to the first defendant herein to file any fresh proceedings on the same cause of action.

* Amudan then filed WP.No.11624 of 1997, wherein he had challenged the allotment made by TNHB to Balakrishnan. This petition was dismissed on 12.04.2002. And, in his Order, the learned Single Judge had gone to investigate the title of the property, and had found that at no point of time either the writ petitioner Amudan or his ancestors were the owners of the plot in question, and that at the time when the acquisition proceedings had commenced, a certain Lalithambal was the registered owner of the property. The Court also has held that the petition is not entertainable due to the petitioner''s laches. The writ petition was, accordingly dismissed.

* Soon after the dismissal of W.P.11624 of 1997, Amudan had instituted another suit in O.S.No.2350 of 2002 against Balakrishnan for bare injunction to protect his possession alleging that the cause of action for this suit had arisen on 15-03-1997, contending yet another time that the suit property was a vacant site.

* Both O.S.No.188 of 1996 and O.S.No.2350 of 2002 came to be tried jointly. It may be reiterated that, while in O.S.188/1996, the TNHB, the requisitioning body, was a defe