The Supreme Court has ruled that a court cannot force a litigant to accept monetary compensation in place of an injunction when no such relief was ever sought in the pleadings. The Court also clarified that once a decree is set aside, an executing court cannot be asked to determine issues that do not arise from any surviving decree.
A Bench comprising Justice S.V.N. Bhatti and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar overturned a decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that had substituted orders directing removal of alleged encroachments with an award of compensation to the plaintiffs.
The dispute stemmed from two civil suits filed by a property owner who alleged that neighbouring parties had unlawfully erected a wall and a lintel that encroached upon his property. The Trial Court accepted his case and ordered the removal of the structures while restraining further construction. Those findings were later affirmed by the First Appellate Court.
When the matter reached the High Court in second appeal, the decrees were modified. Instead of directing removal of the disputed constructions, the High Court treated the wall as a common wall and ordered compensation to be paid to the plaintiff.
The controversy first reached the Supreme Court in 2013, when the High Court’s judgments were set aside because substantial questions of law, a mandatory requirement under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, had not been framed. The cases were then remanded for fresh consideration.
However, after reconsideration, the High Court once again departed from the original decrees. It directed the Executing Court to assess the value of the disputed construction and award compensation to the plaintiffs. This prompted the legal heirs of the original plaintiff to challenge the decision before the Supreme Court.
Allowing the appeals, Justice Chandurkar’s judgment identified two fundamental errors in the High Court’s approach.
First, the Court noted that the plaintiff had never sought damages or compensation. The relief claimed throughout the litigation was removal of the alleged encroachments. In such circumstances, the High Court could not compel the plaintiff’s legal heirs to accept money instead of the relief originally pursued, particularly when they had not consented to such an arrangement.
The Supreme Court observed that courts cannot create an entirely new remedy for a party when that remedy was never pleaded or claimed. Substituting an injunction with compensation, without any request from the plaintiff, amounted to granting relief beyond the scope of the case presented before the court.
Second, the Court found fault with the direction issued to the Executing Court. Once the High Court had set aside the decrees passed in favour of the plaintiff, there was no executable decree left in existence. Without a subsisting decree, the executing court lacked any legal basis to assess the value of the wall or determine compensation.
The Bench held that such a course finds no support under the execution provisions contained in Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure. An executing court, it emphasised, cannot be tasked with carrying out an exercise that is unsupported by any operative decree.
Since the High Court’s decision in the second appeals was not based on a proper consideration of substantial questions of law, the Supreme Court directed the High Court to revisit both appeals and decide them afresh in accordance with Section 100 CPC. The Court also urged an expeditious hearing, noting that the second appeals have remained pending since 2008.
