Civil Revision No.3072 of 2011 -1- IN THE HIGH Court OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CR No.3072 of 2011 Date of Decision: 02.08.2011 Om Parkash .....Petitioner Versus Ram Asra and another .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr. Shiv Kumar, Advocate for the petitioner. M ehinder S ingh S ullar , J.(Oral) Concisely, the facts, culminating in the commencement, relevant for disposal of present revision petition and emanating from the record are that Om Parkash s/o Dattu-petitioner-plaintiff (for brevity “the plaintiff”) filed the suit (Annexure P-1) against Ram Asra and Gian Chand-respondents-defendants (for short “the defendants”) for a decree of declaration to the effect that they are joint owners and in possession of the land in dispute, situated at Village Nangran, Tehsil Anandpur Sahib, District Ropar. The plaintiff has also filed an application for ad- interim injunction under Order 39 Rules 1 & 2 read with Section 151 CPC. 2. During the course of decision of stay application, the trial Court directed both the parties to maintain status-quo with regard to their existing possession and construction by means of order dated 06.04.2010. 3. Aggrieved by the impugned decision of the trial Court, the defendants filed the appeal, which was accepted by the first appellate Court, by way of impugned order dated 04.02.2011. 4. The plaintiff did not feel satisfied with the impugned order of the first appellate Court and preferred the present revision petition. 5. After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner-plaintiff, going through the record with his valuable help and after considering the entire matter Civil Revision No.3072 of 2011 -2- deeply, to my mind, there is no merit in the instant revision petition. 6. As is evident from the record that plaintiff himself filed an application for partition of the land in question and the same was allowed on 11.02.2005 by the Revenue Court. The order of partition was upheld up to the level of Financial Commissioner. Having remained unsuccessful, thereafter, plaintiff has filed the present suit (Annexure P-1), in which, he has again challenged the impugned order of partition. In this view of the matter, suit filed by the plaintiff, challenging the order of partition, appears to be not maintainable, in view of Section 158 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887. Once the plaintiff himself has initiated the partition proceedings before the Revenue Court, then he is estopped from challenging the order of partition in the civil Court, being illegal, null and void. To me, the first appellate Court has rightly negatived the claim of the plaintiff in this context, by virtue of order dated 04.02.2011, which, in substance, is (para 8) as under:- "The plaintiff has filed the present suit for declaration to the effect that plaintiff and defendants are joint owners in possession of the land in dispute to the extent of 1/3 share each as described in the head note of the plaint and the order passed by Assistant Collector in partition application is illegal, null and void, alongwith consequential relief of permanent injunction restraining the defendants from taking forcible possession of the suit property and from raising construction etc. It is admitted fact that the plaintiff had filed an application on 15.1.2003 for partition of the land in question and the same was allowed on 11.02.2005. The appeal/revision filed by the plaintiff against order of partition has been dismissed upto the Financial Commissioner. After dismissal of the said appeal/revision upto the Financial Commissioner, the plaintiff has filed the present suit in which he has challenged the impugned order of partition. When the plaintiff himself had filed application for partition of the land in question in the revenue court then now he has no right to say that the land in question regarding which partition order has been passed, is an Abadi Deh and that the revenue court has no jurisdiction to pass any order in this respect. The plaintiff is estopped by his act and conduct from saying that the revenue court had no jurisdiction to pass the impugned order. He cannot be allowed to take any benefit of his own wrong. After dismissal of the Civil Revision No.3072 of 2011 -3- appeal/revision filed by the plaintiff before Financial Commissioner, vide order dated 18.03.2008, the only remedy available for the plaintiff was to approach Hon'ble High Court by filing a writ against that order. In view of Section 158 of the Punjab Revenue Act, the jurisdiction of the civil court is specifically barred to see the validity of any order passed by the revenue court in partition proceedings. When the civil court cannot give final relief in the suit filed by the plaintiff due to lack of jurisdiction, then question of granting interim injunction to the plaintiff does not arise at all." 7. Meaning thereby, the first appellate Court has recorded the valid reasons and rightly negatived the claim of the plaintiff by placing reliance on judgment of this Court in case Rawant Ram Versus Havita Shree 1998 (3) RCR (Civil), 686, wherein, it was held that once partition proceedings are finalized by the Revenue Authorities under the Land Revenue Act, the jurisdiction of the civil Court has been specifically excluded from entertaining suit challenging such proceedings/orders of Revenue Court. Moreover, such orders, containing valid reasons can not possibly be set-aside, while exercising the limited jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, unless the same is perverse and without jurisdiction. As no such patent illegality or legal infirmity has been pointed out by learned counsel for the petitioner-plaintiff, therefore, the impugned order deserves to be and is hereby maintained, in the obtaining circumstances of the case. 8. In the light of the aforesaid reasons and without commenting further anything on merit, lest, it may prejudice the case of either side during the course of the trial, the instant revision petition filed by the petitioner-plaintiff is hereby dismissed as such. 9. Needless to mention that nothing observed here-in-above would reflect in any manner on the merits of the case as the same has been so recorded for a limited purpose of deciding this revision petition. (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) 2.8.2011 JUDGE AS