Civil Revision No. 6128 of 2011 1 .. IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No. 6128 of 2011 Date of Decision: November 30th, 2011 Azad Singh and others .... Petitioners Versus Sekhar and others .... Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIJENDER SINGH MALIK 1.Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2.Whether to be referred to the Reporters or not? 3.Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present Mr. Sanjiv Gupta, Advocate, for the petitioners. Mr. Parveen Chauhan, Advocate for the Caveator-respondents VIJENDER SINGH MALIK, J. Azad Singh, Bharat Singh and Pawan Singh, defendants have brought this revision petition under the provisions of Article 227 of the Constitution of India for setting aside the order dated 5.5.2010 (Annexure P/1) passed by learned Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division), Karnal vide which the application of the respondents under order 39 Rules 1 and 2 CPC had been allowed and the order dated 6.9.2011 (Annexure P2) passed by learned District Judge, Karnal, whereby the order dated 5.5.2010 of the trial court has been modified. The plaintiffs, the heirs of Surinder Singh, had brought a suit for permanent injunction against the defendants restraining them from plying and alienating the truck bearing registration No.HR-45A-0984 and for Civil Revision No. 6128 of 2011 2 .. mandatory injunction directing the defendants to return the said truck to the plaintiffs and not to use the power of attorney dated 16.9.2009 which may be treated as cancelled. Alongwith the suit, the plaintiffs filed an application for ad interim injunction seeking the relief aforesaid for a period till decision of the suit. They have claimed as under: Surinder Singh, the predecessor-in-interest of the plaintiffs has been owner of truck No. HR-45A-0984. The same is registered in his name. Defendant No.1, Azad Singh had been driver on the said truck during the life time of Surinder Singh. After the death of Surinder Singh, he still continued as driver and used to collect the fare of the truck and pay the installments of the truck to the Financier. Defendant No.1 called Smt. Sita Devi, plaintiff No. 3 on the pretext that there was a case in the Consumer Forum at Karnal regarding installments of the truck and that she had to sign some documents. Defendant No.1 procured the signatures of Sita Devi on a power of attorney regarding the truck in question by playing fraud. The defendants now want the truck to be transferred in their name taking undue advantage of death of Surinder Singh. The said truck is claimed to be in illegal custody of the defendants and the plaintiffs have apprehension that the defendants will misuse the truck and even cause accident bringing the plaintiffs under liability to pay compensation etc. The defendants have denied the ownership of the truck with Surinder Singh. According to them, under a scheme of TATA company, if three trucks were purchased by one person, a discount of Rs.50,000/- was available on the third truck. According to them, to get the said discount of Rs.50,000/-, the truck in question was purchased in the Civil Revision No. 6128 of 2011 3 .. name of Surinder Singh. It is claimed that the payment of the price of the truck was made by the defendants in the life time of Surinder Singh. They have claimed that after the death of Surinder Singh, the plaintiffs have become dishonest and have made this false claim. Hearing learned counsel for the parties, learned trial court found a prima facie case in favour of the plaintiffs and, consequently, granted the relief of ad interim injunction in both forms, i.e., restraining the defendants from plying the truck in question and alienating the same till decision of the suit and also directing the defendants to hand over the truck to the plaintiffs within a month from the date of the order. Aggrieved by the said order, the defendants filed an appeal which has been decided by learned District Judge, Karnal vide judgment dated 6.9.2011. Learned appellate court maintained the order of the trial court so far as the defendants were restrained from plying the truck in question or alienating the same till the decision of the suit. However, regarding the other relief granted to the plaintiffs directing the defendants to hand over the possession of the truck to the plaintiffs within one month, it was found that it amounted to grant of the relief finally and it could not be done as an ad interim measure. So, the relief granted in the mandatory form was set-aside. Aggrieved by the aforesaid orders, the defendants have brought this revision petition. The parties appeared to be inclined to resolve the dispute amicably for which they were assisted by their learned counsel as well as by the court. Even time was given to them to consider the proposals/counter proposals. Today, they have come to the court telling Civil Revision No. 6128 of 2011 4 .. that they could not resolve their dispute amicably. Consequently, I have heard Mr. Sanjiv Gupta, learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr.Parveen Chauhan, learned counsel for the respondents and have gone through the record carefully. The submissions in this case were in the nature of proposals again under which the petitioners proposed to deposit Rs.25,000/- per month in the name of income from the truck and to undertake to be accountable for any accident occurring during the use of the truck. The said proposal was not acceptable to the respondents. It is a case where the truck is in the name of Surinder Singh in the registration certificate. There is nothing to support the plea of the defendants-petitioners that the truck was in fact purchased by them, but in the name of Surinder Singh to avail the discount of Rs.50,000/-, which was available on purchase of three trucks by the same person. It is also not shown on the record that Surinder Singh purchased two other trucks at the time of purchase of truck bearing registration No. HR-45A-0984. It is also a fact on the record that the power of attorney alone is there in favour of defendant No.1 and when this document was executed, there was a matter pending regarding this truck before the Consumer Court between Surinder Singh and the finance company. If the truck was purchased by the defendants but in the name of Surinder Singh on account of some scheme of TATA company, the defendants should have taken some steps to get the truck transferred soon thereafter. It is more so when the plea of defendants is that they paid the price of the truck to Surinder Singh in his life time. There is nothing on the record to suggest that there was any condition of TATA company against transfer of the Civil Revision No. 6128 of 2011 5 .. truck by the owner in favour of any other person. These circumstances, therefore, support the case of the plaintiffs that Surinder Singh himself was the owner of the vehicle and that defendant No.1 was just plying it after the death of Surinder Singh under permission from the plaintiff Smt. Sita Devi and was paying the installments out of the income generated by the truck. The order passed by learned District Judge could be interfered with only if there was some perversity in the exercise of discretion by the court. I do not find any such perversity in the decision of the said court and, therefore, I find no justification warranting interference with the impugned order. The revision petition, consequently, is found to have no merit and the same is dismissed. (VIJENDER SINGH MALIK) JUDGE November 30th, 2011 som