Court, while exercising supervisory jurisdiction, cannot go into the controversy whether putting the property for auction by SBI, is authorized or not: High Court of Uttarakhand.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL ON THE 13TH DAY OF AUGUST 2021 HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE MANOJ KUMAR TIWARI WRIT PETITIONNo. 13421 Sudhir Lodhi. ….Petitioner By Mr. Ramji Srivastava and Mr. Shankar Aggarwal Smt. Bobby Gurung alias Smt. Babita Gurung and others. ....Respondents By Mr. Ashish Joshi Advocate for respondent no. 3) filed a suit for permanent injunction alongwith temporary injunction application. Learned trial Court vide dated 22.04.2021 issued notices on the temporary injunction application fixing 06.05.2021 therefore petitioner has approached this Court contending that having regard to the facts of the case learned trial Court ought to have granted ex parte temporary injunction order in favour of the petitioner. The order passed by learned trial Court on 22.04.2021 cannot be faulted as Order 39 Rule 3 C.P.C. ordains that the Court shall in all cases direct notice of the application to be given to the opposite party before granting any injunction and proviso to Rule 3 mandates that Court will have to record reasons for granting ex parte temporary injunction. Since the order passed by learned trial Court is in consonance with law governing field therefore no interference with the order dated 22.04.2021 would be warranted. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that petitioner’s property is likely to be auctioned by State Bank of India although it was never mortgaged with the Bank. He further submits that petitioner had not taken any loan against the said property therefore the Bank has no authority to put the said property into auction. Per contra learned counsel appearing for respondent no. 3 submits that the property in question which is proposed to be auctioned belongs to one Smt. Durga Bharti and she had mortgaged the said property in favour of State Bank of India. This Court while exercising supervisory jurisdiction cannot go into the controversy whether the act of State Bank of India of putting the property for auction is authorized or not. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that since the temporary injunction application filed by the petitioner is pending therefore the writ petition may be disposed of with a direction to learned trial Court to consider the said application on the next date fixed or any other day within three weeks thereafter. He assures the Court that petitioner will take Dasti notice for effecting personal service upon 3 all the defendants to ensure that all the defendants are served before the next date fixed in the matter. Having regard to the facts & circumstances of the case and also in view of undertaking given by learned counsel for the petitioner on behalf of his client learned trial Court is requested to consider injunction application on 02.09.2021 or on any other day within three weeks thereafter. Till consideration of petitioner’s temporary injunction application or till 24.09.2021 whichever is earlier status quo qua the suit property shall be maintained and no third party interest shall be created by any of the parties. It goes without saying that learned trial Court shall consider temporary injunction application of the petitioner on merits untrammeled by any observation made in this order. 10. The writ petition is accordingly disposed of. 

Summary: Where there is controversy as to whether SBI’s act of auctioning a property was authorized or not, the court felt that it wasn’t supposed to go into that controversy while deciding the matter, while it is exercising its supervisory jurisdiction.  A single Judge bench comprising Hon’ble Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari, in the matter of Sudhir Lodhi Vs. Smt. Bobby Gurung alias Smt. Babita Gurung and others (WRIT PETITION (M/S) No. 1345 of 2021), dealt with an issue where the petitioner filed a suit for permanent injunction along with a temporary injunction application. In the present case, the trial court issued notices on the temporary injunction application, the petitioner approached the court stating the trial Court ought to have granted ex-parte temporary injunction order in favour of the petitioner. The court observed that no interference could be warranted with the order dated 22.04.2021 since the trial court was not at fault as Order 39 Rule 3 C.P.C. ordains that the Court shall, in all cases, a direct notice of the application to be given to the opposite party before granting any injunction and proviso toRule 3 mandates that Court will have to record reasons for granting the ex-parte temporary injunction. The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner had never issued any loan from the State Bank of India (SBI) regarding the property that SBI was about to auction. Thereby the counsel pointed that the Bank had no authority to put the said property into an auction. Further to this, the counsel of respondent 3 submitted that the property to be auctioned belonged to one Smt. Durga Bharti had mortgaged the said property in favour of the State Bank of India. The court observed – “This Court, while exercising supervisory jurisdiction, cannot go into the controversy whether the act of State Bank of India, of putting the property for auction, is authorized or not.” The counsel for the petitioner prayed that since the temporary injunction application was pending, the court if it feels fit, may dispose of the writ petition with a direction to the trial court to consider the said application on the next date fixed or any other day within three weeks thereafter. The court thereby directed the trial court to consider petitioner’s temporary injunction application on 02.09.2021 or on any other day within three weeks thereafter and stated that – “Till consideration of petitioner’s temporary injunction application or till 24.09.2021, whichever is earlier, status quo qua the suit property shall be maintained and no third party interest shall be created by any of the parties.” Thereby the writ petition was dismissed.