The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of equitable principles and the guidelines for granting temporary mandatory injunction in property disputes.

S. N. Srivastava, J.—The dispute in the instant petition revolves round property No. 28/33 situated at Gange Ka Phatak, Kashmiri Bazar, Agra.

2. It would appear from the record that the respondent Nos. 3 to 8 were the tenants of the house in question of which petitioner No. 1 is the landlord. The access to the said house, it would further appear, was through the staircase and it is alleged that the landlord locked the door having access to the tenements through the staircase. It would further appear that respondents initially represented to the District Magistrate for opening of the lock but having failed, they instituted O. S. No. 475 of 2004 along with accompanying application for temporary injunction in the Court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) Agra. In the ultimate analysis, the trial court passed orders mandating by way of interim injunction to the defendants petitioners to unlock the door barring access to the tenements in question. Aggrieved by the said order, the petitioner defendants preferred revision before the appellate court, which held good the view taken by the trial court and dismissed the revision accordingly. It is in the above backdrop that the petitioners have come up to this Court for the relief’s.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioners giving a general view of the controversy involved in this petition stated that the respondents were engaged in flesh trade and on account of public out-cry and pressure exerted by certain social organizations as well as by the police posse to cleanse the area of the tenants who according to the learned counsel of fourth petitioner were indulging in prostitution, vacated the premises on their own accord to settle elsewhere in the city of Agra. He further canvassed that once the premises in question have voluntarily been vacated by the respondents, the same cannot be restored to them and the trial court as well as appellate court committed illegality and transcended the bounds of their jurisdiction in making the orders of the nature impugned herein. It has been further submitted that the respondents having voluntarily vacated the premises, are no more in occupation of the premises nor can they be treated as tenants. The learned counsel for the petitioner also raised a question of considerable nicety stating that any ad-interim injunction could be granted to restore possession on the date of suit and such mandatory injunction by which a direction was issued not to maintain status quo on the date of suit but to restore the possession prior to the suit which was the main cause of action in the suit was beyond the jurisdiction of the Court below and on this reckoning, he painted the order as illegal and without jurisdiction. Per contra, learned counsel appearing for the respondents propped up the order passed by the Courts below by contending that it has not been denied that the petitioners were the tenants and further that the respondents had illegally pad-locked the door barring access to the tenements in the tenancy of the respondents without any valid basis and they have concocted the ground that the premises in question had been vacated.

4. At the time of initial hearing of the petitioner on 2.9.2004, the Court framed an issue to the effect “whether temporary mandatory injunction could be granted in favour of the plaintiffs in order to restore a position prior to filing of the suit”. It is this question on which hinges the decision of the points raised before this Court.

5. I have been taken through the impugned orders and the learned counsel also advanced arguments at prolific length on the point. In connection with the point at issue, decision of the Apex Court in Dorab Cawasji Warden v. Coomi Sorab Warden, AIR 1990 SC 867, which is one of the magnus opus case on the point may be referred to. In this case, the Apex Court laid down four guidelines : (i) A stronger prima facie case than in normal circumstances; (ii) The resultant injury cannot be compensated in