A party in possession of immovable property for a sufficient long time is entitled to retain it unless dispossessed in due course of law.

RAJENDRA NATH MITTAL, J.

1. The plaintiff has filed this revision petition against the order of the District Judge, Karnal, D/- 9th Feb., 1982.

2. Briefly, the case of the plaintiff is that he was in possession of the land as tenant under the Smadh Baba Bhagwan Gir Sahib on payment of Rs. 2325/- as yearly rent. The defendant wanted to forcibly dispossess the petitioner from it. Consequently, he filed a suit for permanent injunction that the defendant be restrained from interfering in his peaceful possession of the land or auctioning it to any other person. In the suit, an application for ad interim injunction restraining the defendant to take possession of the land during the pendency of the suit was also filed by him. The defendant contested the application and pleaded that it was in possession of the land and had been leasing out the same to different persons. It also pleaded that the plaintiff had concealed the true facts and, therefore, he was not entitled to ad interim injunction.

3. The trial Court held that the plaintiff was in possession of the land but dismissed the application regarding ad interim injunction on the ground that he concealed material facts. On appeal by the plaintiff, the District Judge affirmed the order of the trial Court. He has come up in revision against the said order to this Court.

4. It is contended by Mr. Goyal that it has been held by the Courts below that the plaintiff was in possession of the property since long and after coming to that conclusion it should not have refused the application for ad interim injunction. According to him, even a trespasser cannot be evicted except in due course of law. He made a reference to Mohan Lal V/s. State of Punjab, 1971 Pun LJ 338 (SC) Kanhiya V/s. Gram Panchayat, Jorasi Kalan, 1981 Pun LJ 252 and Roop Chand v, Joginder Singh, IAS, Deputy Commissioner, Gurdaspur, 1974 Cur LJ 639 (Punj and. Har).

5. I have duly considered the argument. It is well settled that the granting of ad interim injunction is purely within the discretion of the Court but the discretion has to be exercised in accordance with the sound judicial principles. The principles which govern the exercise of the discretion are that the party claiming interim injunction should establish that it has a prima facie case, that if it not granted it is likely to suffer a greater mischief and that interference by the Court is necessary to protect it from irreparable injury. When relief of injunction is claimed against forcible dispossession from immovable property, the established principle of law is that the party in possession for a sufficient long time is entitled to retain it unless dispossessed in due course of law. I am fortified in the above view, by the observations of the Supreme Court in Mohan Lal s case (supra) wherein it was held that under our jurisprudence even an unauthorised occupant can be evicted only in the manner authorised by law. It relevant to point out that in that case the appellants remained in possession for period of five years before they were sought to be, dispossessed. The above case as followed by a learned single Judge Kanhiya s case (1981 Pun LJ 252) (supra). It was observed there that non-granting of the temporary injunction to person in possession would indicate a licence to another person claiming him if to be the owner to resort to force or lawful means to dispossess him from the property. In that case also, the plaintiff, who had been granted injunction by this Court had been in possession of the property for more than one year prior to he filing of the suit. Similar view was taken in Roop Chand s case (1974 Cur LJ 639) (supra). The learned Judge held that even if it was accepted for the sake of argument that the petitioner was in unauthorised possession of the house, then also he could not be thrown out otherwise than in due course of law. He was entitled to retain the possession subject to any decision given by the Court of law.

6. Now, I deal with the