- (1.) This is the second appeal of the defendant in a suit filed by the respondents-plaintiffs seeking recovery of Rs.3 lacs from the appellantdefendant, by way of damages claimed from her, allegedly due to the filing of false complaints and suits by the defendant against the plaintiffs. The suit having been decreed in favour of the respondentplaintiff, by the learned Civil Judge (Senior Division), Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, an appeal was filed by the present appellant before the learned District Judge, which too was dismissed, leading to the filing of the present second appeal.
(2.) The facts, as taken from the judgments of the courts below, verified from the copy of the plaint filed by the respondents herein, are that it was contended by the plaintiffs that one Hardesh Kumar Thapar, son of the first plaintiff and the brother of the second plaintiff, had purchased a house adjoining the house of the first plaintiff, vide a registered sale deed dated 12.02.1996. The appellant-defendant was stated to be occupying one room on the ground floor of the said house as a tenant, even at the time when vacant possession of the other parts of the house, as were vacant, were handed over to Hardesh Kumar, upon execution of the sale deed in his favour by the previous owner. Allegedly, the appellant had good relations with anti social elements and "started planning to unnecessarily harassed the plaintiffs and Hardesh Kumar", though the latter was living in Sri Lanka along with his family. It was contended that due to jealousy and with a malafide intention, the appellant dragged the plaintiffs into "false litigation", by first filing a suit in the year 1996, which kept on pending for 4 ½ years and was ultimately decided on 16.10.2000, with it being partly dismissed and partly decreed. Thereafter, she is also stated to have filed a false complaint against the plaintiffs and Hardesh Kumar on 14.06.1996, alleging that they had committed offences punishable under Sections 467, 380, 427 and 482 of the IPC. That complaint was dismissed on 26.07.2011, (a copy of the judgment having been led by way of evidence as Ex. P1). The appeal filed by the defendant against that judgment also remained pending for one year, causing the plaintiffs to attend Court on many occasions, but eventually the appeal was stated to have been disposed of with the complaint itself having been withdrawn by the appellant, on the ground that it would be presented before a "proper court'. (Actually a perusal of Ex.P2, shows it to be an order by the which appeal was returned to the appellant by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge, holding that the appeal was not maintainable. The complaint itself was never withdrawn).
(3.) Thereafter, it was further alleged in the plaint, that the defendant started threatening to take forcible possession of the 'chobara' of the house from the plaintiffs, due to which plaintiff No.1, being the attorney of his son Hardesh Kumar, filed a civil suit against the appellant, which was decreed in the plaintiffs / Hardesh Kumar's favour, on 15.05.2002, (A copy of that judgment is Ex.P6). The appeal against the said judgment is also stated to have been dismissed and on appeal against grant of interim injunction in favour of Hardesh Kumar, was also dismissed on 29.08.1998.;