Charma India Private Ltd. and Another vs S.D.M. and Others

Barkat Ali Zaidi, J.—In connection of 3 plots bearing Nos. 519,535 and 537, comprising of an area .5981 hectares, .5198 hectares and .2519 hectares, situated in village Mohiuddinpur Kanavni, Tehsil Dadri district Gautam Buddha Nagar, there arose a dispute between opposite party No. 4 on the one side and two applicants on the other side. The opposite party No. 4, therefore, filed a Civil Suit (O.S. No. 450 of 2001) for perpetual injunction against the applicants in the court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) Gautam Buddha Nagar. The Civil Judge passed an interim order directing the parties to preserve the subject matter of the suit in status quo, which the applicants challenged by filing an Appeal (F.A.F.O. No. 2937 of 2006) before the High Court and the High Court by an order dated 18.11.2006 stayed the operation of the order of the Civil Court. Subsequent to that, the opposite party No. 4 approached S.D.M. Sadar district Gautam Buddha Nagar u/s 145, Cr. P.C. and the Magistrate sent for a police report and on filing a report on 21.1.2007 by the Police, the Magistrate on 22.1.2007 by issuance of an order u/s 145(1), Cr. P.C. directed the parties to maintain the status quo. The applicant thereafter appeared and in their objections filed before the S.D.M. prayed to vacate the order. The Magistrate subsequently instructed the police orally to maintain peace on the spot in turn on 20.2.2007 the police filed a report, reported that there exists no apprehension of breach of peace between the parties and each rival party is in peaceful possession of his piece of land as mentioned in their report copy of which is Annexure-16 on the file.

The applicants have now come to this Court u/s 482, Cr. P.C. for termination of order dated 22.2.2007 passed for preserving the property in status quo.

Heard Sri Gopal Chaturvedi, senior advocate assisted by Sri Y. K. Sinha, advocate for the applicants, Sri P. C. Srivastava and Sri S. Alim Shah, advocates for opposite party No. 4 and Sri R. K. Maurya, Additional Government advocate for the State.

As will appear from copy of application (Annexure-18) that an application was moved by the applicants before the Magistrate on 21.2.2007 for dropping the proceedings as according to the police there existed no apprehension of breach of peace which still remains pending.

The legal infrastructure provides forum for redressal. The established law is that a party seeking redress must approach the higher legal forum available for a relief only when it is refused by the lower forum. The courts of law formulated by our legal pharmacopoeia are in the nature of ladder and for going to the top one has to ascend the first end of the ladder and then onwards accordingly.

In this case, without a verdict on their application, the applicants have come to this Court in a hot haste which they cannot be allowed unless their application is decided by S.D.M.

If the applicants are allowed for seeking, the relief here u/s 482, Cr. P.C., all the work of the lower courts would be accumulated in the High Court. As such, the mere fact that the High Court has the power to grant relief in any matter which the lower courts can, will not entitle a litigant to approach the High Court directly. That would violate the established norms and procedure and will disturb the hierarchy of the courts.

Application dismissed. However, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate is advised to decide the application of the applicants as early as possible.