Present : Dalton and Drieberg JJ.      1929

JINADASA v. WEERASINGHE.

208-D. C. (Inty.) Matara, 3,418.

Injunction-Application for interim order-Good grounds-Limitation of order-When injunctions should issue.

An interim injunction should not be granted ex parte, unless it is supported on strong grounds and all the necessary facts are-disclosed.

Where such an application is granted, it should as a rule be-limited to a certain date to allow notice to be given to the other side.
Injunctions cannot be obtained for actionable wrongs, for which damages are the proper remedy.

APPEAL from an order of the District Judge of Matara.

Zoysa, K. C. (with Speldwinde), for plaintiff, appellant,

R. V. Perera (with Keuneman), for defendant, respondent.

May 1, 1929. DALTON J.-

These are two appeals : (1) against an order dated August 20 last dissolving an injunction granted in this action on December 20, 1927 ; (2) against an order of the trial Judge allowing certain issues to be tried at the inquiry as to whether the injunction should be dissolved or not.

A simple matter has been most unnecessarily complicated by the procedure followed by the parties and the Court below. It is necessary to state what has taken place to understand how the matter now comes before this Court.

The appellant is the plaintiff in the action. He launched his plaint on December 17, 1927. The defendant, be it noted, has not yet filed his answer. The claim sets out that plaintiff is the lessee of 70 coir husk pits from the Crown, these pits we are informed being-fenced off portions of a lagoon. Adjoining these pits, it is pleaded, is a strip of land reclaimed from the lagoon which has been used from time immemorial for the purpose of beating coir husks. Adjoining this strip of land is land belonging to defendant, across which it is stated from time immemorial has existed a public road leading from the Matara-Tangalla road to the husk pits. Plaintiff pleads that this public road over defendant's land has been obstructed by defendant, the obstruction being the erection of a fence across it,, and he is prevented from using the public road and the strip of land

adjoining his pits, and from access to his pits. He claimed an DALTON J. interim injunction directing the defendant to allow him to use the  road and the strip of land, and also damages.

In support of this application for the interim injunction one Weerasinghe affidavit by himself was produced setting out very briefly his claim. The principal ground urged in support of the application is clearly the alleged wrongful and unlawful obstruction of a public road preventing, it is alleged, access to the strip of land and the coir pits. On this affidavit alone the District Judge allowed the ex parte application. In my opinion his order was not in any way justified by the material before him. Further, even if he thought there was ground for granting an injunction on the plaintiff's case as set out in his plaint, he should have applied the provisions of section 664 of the Civil Procedure Code and directed that notice be served on the other side. A party must have very strong grounds and put all the necessary facts before the Court to obtain an interim injunction on an ex parte application, and even if granted it should as a general rule only be to a certain date to allow of notice to the other side. On the next day, December 21, also on an ex parte application, the injunction was amended and the Fiscal was directed to remove the alleged obstruction across the road. Defendant thereupon moved that the injunction be discharged under the provisions of section 666 of the Code. After most informal proceedings which are described in the judgment; of this Court under date April 30. 1928, the District Judge " suspended " the injunction and appointed a date to go into the question whether it should be granted or not ' de novo. Naturally plaintiff objec