Devi v. Triplicane Annadhana Samajam, Rep. by its Secretary
2022-07-19
S.KANNAMMAL
body2022
DigiLaw.ai
JUDGMENT : S. KANNAMMAL, J. Prayer: Civil Revision Petition is filed against the order, dated 18.02.2021, passed in E.A. No. 3 of 2021 in E.P. No. 1532 of 2013 in O.S. No. 2736 of 2003 on the file of X Assistant City Civil Court, Chennai. 1. Petitioner, who is a third party to the suit, has filed this Civil Revision Petition against the order, dated 18.02.2021, passed in E.A. No. 3 of 2021 in E.P. No. 1532 of 2013 in O.S. No. 2736 of 2003 on the file of X Assistant City Civil Court, Chennai, in and by which, the prayer of the petitioner for conducting an inquiry under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was rejected. 2. According to the petitioner, she was residing in a portion of the suit schedule property for the past thirty years.
2. According to the petitioner, she was residing in a portion of the suit schedule property for the past thirty years. She was not aware of the proceedings in O.S. No. 2736 of 2003 and also the E.P. No. 1532 of 2013 proceedings and, immediately after coming to know of the same, she moved the Court for protection in E.P. No. 1532 of 2013 on various grounds; the suit was filed for a relief against a tenant for taking possession of the demised premises with a limited portion; the portion was not demarcated either in the plaint or in the judgment or in the decretal order; if some other person was residing in another portion in the suit building, the decree was not binding on that person; she filed documents to prove her possession prior to 2003; the original owner had not filed the suit to remove the obstruction if any prevailing at the time of filing of the suit; therefore, she, as an obstructor, had the right to get impleaded in the execution petition and establish her right of adverse possession; the boundary would prevail over the property; but, in this case, the boundary for the portion claimed by the plaintiff was not given distinctly; therefore, the judgment and decree was not binding on the obstructor; contrary to the plaint and the decree, deliberately, in the execution petition, the portion in the decree was omitted; even in the Will, only two portions were bequeathed to the first respondent-Samajam and one portion to the petitioner's predecessors; hence, the suit was filed deliberately suppressing the facts, so also, the E.P. omitting the portion mentioned in the plaint, judgment and decree, and, hence, she filed an application to hold an inquiry under Section 340 of Cr.P.C. in the interest of justice and punish the first respondent/decree holder under the penal law. 3.
3. The case of the petitioner was resisted by the first respondent-Samajam in the counter affidavit, stating that the petitioner, who was a third party, failed in her attempts to challenge the execution petition filed in E.P. No. 1532 of 2013 right from the year 2016 and her obstruction petition in E.A. No. 3221 of 2016 after recording evidence was dismissed by the Court by an order, dated 24.01.2017; even in the obstruction petition, she had not disclosed anything about the portion and, therefore, it could be easily presumed that there was no separate portion; for the first time, it was represented that there were three portions in the premises and the original tenant, namely, the second respondent- Damodharan, was in two portions, which were under lock and key; the said Damodharan alone was instrumental in setting up obstruction petition to drag on the execution proceedings; the petitioner never stated in which portion she was residing, where the alleged portion was situated inside the premises, what was the extent of the alleged portion, whether there was any demarcation of the alleged portion, whether she was a tenant, whether she had paid any rent for the alleged portion, who was the owner of the said portion; the petitioner has no locus-standi to file the petition and, therefore, the petition was liable to be dismissed. 4. No witnesses were examined and no documents were also marked on either side. The Trial Court, on hearing the arguments of both the sides, dismissed the application of the petitioner, holding that no inquiry was warranted under Section 340 of Cr.P.C. Aggrieved over the same, the petitioner has filed this Civil Revision Petition. 5. The only contention of the petitioner before this Court is that the first respondent-decree holder had deliberately omitted the word “portion” in column 12 of the execution petition, whereas, the suit was filed and decreed only for a “portion” of the E.P. Schedule property and hence an inquiry under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure had to be conducted and the first respondent-decree holder was to be punished accordingly. 6. Conversely, the contention of the first respondent is that the trial Court had dealt with the matter in extenso and arrived at the correct conclusion and, hence, the order impugned does not warrant any interference. 7.
6. Conversely, the contention of the first respondent is that the trial Court had dealt with the matter in extenso and arrived at the correct conclusion and, hence, the order impugned does not warrant any interference. 7. Second respondent is not represented by any counsel nor has he appeared before this Court in person to contest the matter. 8. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and also gone through the records, including the order impugned. 9. Admittedly, the petitioner is a third party to the suit. To conduct an inquiry under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it is a sine qua non for the petitioner to satisfy the Court by establishing a prima facie case. Whether mere omission of the word “portion” in Column-12 of the Execution Petition would amount to a false claim, is to be tested. 10. As a matter of fact, the suit in O.S. No. 2736 of 2003 on the file of II Assistant City Civil Court, Chennai, was filed by the first respondent-Samajam against one E. Damodharan, the second respondent, for a direction to vacate and deliver vacant possession of the portion in the suit schedule property and for a permanent injunction. The said suit was decreed as prayed for against the said E. Damodharan on 06.12.2012. As against the judgment and decree passed in the suit, the second respondent filed A.S. No. 137 of 2013 on the file of XV Additional City Civil Court, Chennai, and the same was dismissed on 15.09.2014. Thereafter, as against the judgment and decree passed in A.S. No. 137 of 2013, E.Damodharan filed S.A. No. 108 of 2015 on the file of this High Court and the same also stood dismissed on 17.12.2015. Therefore, the judgment and decree of the trial Court in O.S. No. 2736 of 2003 became final. Following the decreeing of the suit on 06.12.2012, the first respondent filed E.P. No. 1532 of 2021 on 01.07.2013 before the trial Court, wherein, according to the petitioner, the word “portion” was not mentioned. During the pendency of the said petition, the petitioner filed E.A. No. 3221 of 2016 under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the same was also dismissed on 24.01.2017, as against which, no appeal or revision was filed before higher forum.
During the pendency of the said petition, the petitioner filed E.A. No. 3221 of 2016 under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the same was also dismissed on 24.01.2017, as against which, no appeal or revision was filed before higher forum. Thereafter, the petitioner filed another application in E.A. No. 3 of 2021 on 08.02.2021 to hold an inquiry under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and punish the first respondent-decree holder under the penal law for omission of the word “portion”, which, according to him, was deliberate. 11. The petitioner was not at all a party to the original suit in O.S. No. 2736 of 2003 or in first appeal in A.S. No. 137 of 2013 or in second appeal in S.A. No. 108 of 2015. Right from trial in the suit before the trial Court in the year 2003 till the disposal of the Second Appeal before this High Court in the year 2015, nowhere, false evidence or fabricated evidence having been used or shown at any stage of the judicial proceedings, the application in E.A. No. 3 of 2021 praying to hold an inquiry under Section 340 of Cr.P.C. in the considered opinion of this Court, was not sustainable. 12. The suit schedule property was one of the properties bequeathed by one Mr. Rajakannu Gramani through a Will in favour of the first respondent-Samajam. Though the petitioner says that she has been residing in one of the portions of the suit schedule property for several years, namely, three decades, she has not stated as to who is the original owner and when she purchased the said property from the original owner nor has she produced any document to show her ownership of the suit schedule property. 13. Mere omission of the word “portion” in the E.P. Schedule property does not attract Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure relating to offences under Section 195 (1) (b), as the same is curable. Though the word “portion” has been omitted, even according to the petitioner, the suit had been filed and decreed only for a portion of the suit/E.P. Schedule premises. In fact, the omission must be something which was made deliberately with a dishonest intention to cheat the authority of the Court so as to get an order beneficial to the person, making such omission.
In fact, the omission must be something which was made deliberately with a dishonest intention to cheat the authority of the Court so as to get an order beneficial to the person, making such omission. It is also very pertinent to state that the suit was filed only as against the second respondent, namely, E.Damodharan, and the decree granted was also only against him, and not the petitioner herein. In such a situation, how the petitioner was aggrieved for such an inadvertent error is not known to this Court. Even assuming she is aggrieved by such an act, remedy was very much available to the petitioner to approach the trial Court under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the same was also availed by her in E.A. No. 3221 of 2016, which was dismissed, as stated supra. When her application was dismissed, if she was really aggrieved, she ought to have filed an appeal against the said order, but, instead, she slept over the matter for five years and, thereafter, woke up from slumber to file E.A. No. 3 of 2021 to further delay the execution proceedings by filing frivolous petitions, one after another. The dilatory tactics adopted by the petitioner in preventing the suit decretal proceedings from reaching their logical ends are to be highly deprecated. 14. Moreover, in order to ascertain the physical features of the suit schedule property, an Advocate Commissioner was appointed by the trial Court and the Advocate Commissioner filed his report. As per the Commissioner's Report, the suit premises was a building, consisting of ground floor and first floor. The second respondent-defendant, who was the tenant, had not disputed that he was in possession of ground floor and first floor. The report of the Advocate Commissioner would further reveal that the suit premises was a house property, which was let out on rent to the second respondent-defendant-Damodharan, and there was no mention about any portion to have been let out to the second respondent. The second respondent had admitted that he was a tenant in the suit premises. The omission of the word “portion” in the execution petition does not appear to be made deliberately with dishonest intention, but it was only by oversight.
The second respondent had admitted that he was a tenant in the suit premises. The omission of the word “portion” in the execution petition does not appear to be made deliberately with dishonest intention, but it was only by oversight. In this regard, as already stated above, the petitioner had already filed an application under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the same got dismissed. If she was aggrieved over the said dismissal, further remedy was very much available for her before higher forum, which she had not chosen. Therefore, on the basis of the material available on record, no prima facie case was made out by the petitioner to hold an inquiry under Section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code. 15. It is trite that the difficulties of the litigant in India begin when he or she has obtained a decree. This evil was noticed as far back in 1872 by the Privy Council in relation to the difficulties faced by the decree holder in execution of the decree. Even after more than a century and a half, there has been no improvement and still the decree holder faces the same problem what was being faced in the past. A litigant coming to Court seeking relief is not interested in receiving a paper decree when he succeeds in establishing his case. What he or she primarily wants from the Court of Justice is the relief and, if it is a money decree, he/she wants that money what he/she is entitled for in terms of the decree, and must be satisfied by the judgment debtor at the earliest without fail, keeping in view the reasonable restrictions/rights, which are available to the judgment debtor under the provisions of the statute or the Code, as the case may be. 16. From the records, it is seen that the petitioner has dragged on the proceedings at the execution stage for nearly a decade in the suit of two decade old for no good reason, thereby causing mental agony to the first respondent-Samajam all these years. The said attitude of the petitioner cannot be simply ignored, but has to be viewed seriously. 17. Accordingly, finding no merit, this Civil Revision Petition is dismissed with costs of Rs. 10,000/- to be payable by the petitioner to the first respondent-Samajam, within a period of two months.
The said attitude of the petitioner cannot be simply ignored, but has to be viewed seriously. 17. Accordingly, finding no merit, this Civil Revision Petition is dismissed with costs of Rs. 10,000/- to be payable by the petitioner to the first respondent-Samajam, within a period of two months. Consequently, the connected C.M.P. No. 10259 of 2021 also stands dismissed.