JUDGMENT

Mr. Harsimran Singh Sethi, J. (Oral)

CM-4791-CII-2021

Application is allowed, as prayed for.

CR-111-2016

The present civil revision petition has been filed challenging the order dated 08.12.2015 (Annexure P-3) vide which the application filed by the petitioner-defendant under Order 7, Rule 11 CPC for rejection of the plaint, has been dismissed.

2. The respondents-plaintiffs had filed a suit seeking possession of tenanted premises situated at Ashri Gate Chowk, Jind City, the description of which property was given in the suit itself. The further prayer was that the petitioner-defendant would construct the building on the site and will deliver the possession of the said re-constructed building to the respondents-plaintiffs or in the alternative, the respondents-plaintiffs be allowed to construct the building at a place, where he was already a tenant.

3. In the said suit, an application was filed under Order 7, Rule 11 CPC for rejection of the plaint raising a plea that there is no cause of action to file the present suit and further, once the building in question, in which the respondents-plaintiffs were tenant, has already been demolished and no relief was given in favour of the respondents-plaintiffs in a suit, wherein, they were seeking restraint from demolition of the building concerned, the present suit is hit by the principle of res-judicata and the plaint is liable to be rejected.

4. The said application has been dismissed by the courts below by the impugned order, which order dated 18.12.2015 has been challenged in the present civil revision petition.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner-defendant argues that no doubt the respondents-plaintiffs were tenant in a building in question but the said building had been demolished by the Municipal Council, Jind even though a suit was filed by the respondents-plaintiffs seeking restraint upon the Municipal Council qua the demolition of the said building but as no interim injunction was granted in favour of the respondents-plaintiffs by the competent court of law, the said building has already been demolished by the Municipal Council, hence, fresh suit, which has been filed by the respondents-plaintiffs seeking the possession of the building in question, where the respondents-plaintiffs were tenant with the further direction to the petitioner-defendant to re-construct the portion or allow the respondents-plaintiffs to re-construct the tenanted portion is not maintainable and amounts to res-judicata, hence, the application filed by the petitioner-defendant under Order 7, Rule 11 CPC has wrongly been rejected by the trial court.

6. Learned counsel for the respondents-plaintiffs, on the other hand, submits that the relief being sought in two suits filed by the respondents-plaintiffs was entirely different. Learned counsel for the respondents-plaintiffs submits that in the first suit, the relief sought was with regard to seeking restraint against the demolition of the building in question by Municipal Council where the respondents-plaintiffs were tenant but now as the said building has already been demolished, in the fresh suit, the relief is for grant of possession of the tenanted premises with the further direction to the petitioner-defendant either to re-construct the building in question or to allow the respondents-plaintiffs to construct the building at their own cost, hence, the prayer raised in the application that the present suit is barred by res-judicata, is without any application of mind and the said application has been rightly rejected by the trial court.

7. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the record with the