- (1.) The petitioners filed a suit giving rise to this petition for a permanent injunction restraining the respondent from manufacturing and repairing cane furniture on the premises in dispute which is a shop in Sector 22, Chandigarh and from obstructing the landlords and their tenants from entering the basement from the back side of the shop by closing the shutters. Alongwith this suit, they filed an application for an ad interim injunction for the same purpose. The trial Court declined the application on two grounds. Firstly, that yet it was to be decided as to for what purpose the premises were let out and the mere fact that the Chandigarh Administration has issued a notice for violation of the conditions of sale by that user would be no ground to grant a temporary injunction, and secondly, that there was an equally efficacious alternative remedy of eviction available to the landlords. Dissatisfied with that order, the plaintiffs filed an appeal and the learned Additional District Judge though reversed the finding of the trial Court that the plaintiffs had no prima facie case but rejected the appeal on the ground that the view of the trial Court regarding the balance of convenience and irreparable loss could not be said to be perverse and that any loss which may be caused to the plaintiffs could be compensated by damages. It is this order of the learned Additional District Judge, Chandigarh, dated December 15, 1978 which is under challenge in this revision petition.
(2.) As observed above, the plaintiffs have been found to have prima facie case that the premises are being used by the respondent for the purposes other than those for which the plot was sold by the Chandigarh Administration. A perusal of the reply to paragraph No. 1 of the plaint would show that the respondent had admitted that the shop in dispute was meant for commercial purposes. But to further satisfy myself, I have looked into the original sale deed and the letter of allotment containing the conditions of sale which is a part of the sale-deed by virtue of condition 9 of the said deed. In clause 17 of the letter of allotment, it is mentioned that the site and the building erected thereon shall be used only for the purpose for which it is actually sold, i.e., the general trade only. The term, general trade has been further defined in clause 25 which provides that the both shop cum-office constructed on the site sold for general trade will be a booth where traders except those in which use so fire, cooking or manufacturing or repair of furniture, car or cycle, sale of fruit and vegetables and fish or any trades which may cause an obstruction in the public passage can be carried out. It is, therefore, abundantly clear that the demised shop cannot be used for manufacture or repair of furniture, Section 8-A of the Capital of Punjab (Development and Regulation) Act, 1952, provides that in case of the breach of any other condition of such transfer of breach of any rules made under this Act, the Estate Officer may, if he thinks fit, resume the site or building so transferred and may further forfeit the whole or any part of the money, if any, paid in respect thereof. Section 13 further provides that for contravention of Sub-section (2) of Section 4, a person, on conviction, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees and to a further fine which may extend to twenty rupees for each day during which the offence is proved to have continued after the first day. Though no notice has been issued under Section 8-A but a notice under Section 13-A has been issued to the petitioners. It is, therefore, apparent from the combined reading of these two sections that the plaintiffs for the continued use of the shop for purpose other than the one for which the plot was sold can be prosecuted and fined and the plot can as well be resumed. The learned Additional District Judge, therefore, went wholly wrong in observing that no irreparable loss would be caused to the landlords or that they can be compensated by damages for any injury caused to them. That apart, if the acts done by the tenant on the premises are forbidden by law, the landlord is entitled to seek injunction from the Court restraining the tenant from doing those acts, although this matter has yet to be tried and decided. Again, even though it may be found that the landlords permitted the tenant to manufacture and repair furniture on the demised premises, it would be of no consequence because even the landlords are not entitled to give such a permission to use the premises in contravention of the condition of sale. The trial Court as well as the lower Appellate Court, therefore, proceeded wholly on untenable basis and thus acted illegally in the exercise of their jurisdiction in declining the ad interim injunction.
(3.) In support of the ground taken by the trial Court that if alternative remedy is available, no temporary injunction should be granted, the learned counsel for the respondent relied on the Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Suresh Chandra Jaipuri and another (1). There cannot be any dispute with this proposition of law but it has hardly any bearing on the facts of the present case. The remedy of eviction is not an alternative remedy to the relief of injunction restraining the tenant from misusing the premises and both are independent remedies which the landlord in the circumstances of the case has to resort to because of the conditions of sale.;