CHHUTTA SON OF BHAWANI AND OTHERS Vs. PYARE SON OF LEELA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a Defendants' second appeal from the decree of the District Judge of Shahjahanpur reversing that of the Munsif Shahjahanpur and issuing an injunction ordering the Defendant -Appellants to close a door in the wall of their house and restraining them from using the Plaintiff's sehan for the purpose of entering their own house. The facts very briefly are these. The Plaintiffs alleged that they had a residential house in the village to the north of which was the residential house of the Defendants. The land to the east of the Plaintiff's house was their sehan. About five months before the filing of the suit the Defendants committed trespass by demolishing a cattle trough belonging to the Plaintiffs and opening a new door in their eastern wall, and they were using the Plaintiff's sehan for gaining access to this door. The Plaintiffs complained that the Defendants had no right to pass over their sehan and even after the Plaintiffs had requested them not to commit trespass over their land they continued to do so. They asked for an injunction to compel Defendants to close the door and restrain them from passing over the Plaintiffs' sehan. The Defendants resisted the suit and denied that they had committed any trespass on the Plaintiffs' land. They alleged that they always had two doors -one to the north and the other to the east. They also denied that the Plaintiffs had any title to the house occupied by them and pleaded that the suit for injunction was incompetent on this ground.

(2.) THE trial court held that the door in dispute was not old as alleged by the Defendants but new, but dismissed the Plaintiffs' suit on the ground that they had not proved their title to the house and sehan occupied by them. It disbelieved the Plaintiffs' story that they were owners thereof. On appeal the learned District Judge confirmed both the factual findings of the trial court namely, that the Plaintiffs had not proved their title to the house occupied by them and that the Defendants had raised new constructions which did not exist before. But it disagreed with the view of the trial court that the Plaintiffs were not entitled to any injunction because of want of title in the land occupied by them. He allowed the appeal and issued the injunction as prayed for. The Defendants have come to this Court in second appeal.

(3.) APPLYING these principles to this case, the Plaintiffs were clearly entitled to an injunction to restrain the Defendants. 1 hey have proved that they were in lawful possession of the house and the sehan in dispute, that the Defendants had no right or title to this property, and that he had constructed a new door which he could only use by passing over the sehan occupied by them. The Defendants, in these circumstances, must be restrained exactly as if they had committed trespass against the true owner themselves.