Aapka Consultant Judgment Series- In this series, we are providing case analysis of Landmark Judgments of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.
Supreme General Films Exchange Ltd. vs. Maharaja Sir Brijnath Singhji Deo & Ors….
AIR1975SC1810, (1975)2SCC530
Hon’ble Judges/Coram: A.C. Gupta and M. Hameedullah Beg, JJ.
Date of Decision: 04.08.1975
FACTS:-
The plaintiff-respondent was a mortgagee in respect of a cinema theatre of which the appellant claimed to be a lessee in occupation. A compromise decree was passed on 7th May, 1960 in the suit filed by the plaintiff-respondent against the mortgagor be which it was agreed that the amounts due would be released by the sale of the theatre. The Central Bank of India, another creditor of the mortgagor, assigned its rights under the decree to the plaintiff-respondent. The theatre was attached in the course of the execution of the decree. The original lease of 1940 which the appellant company had entered into, expired in 1946 but the company continued as a tenant holding over until the impugned lease deed of 1956 was executed. The appellant company filed a suit in 1954 for the specific Performance of the agreement to lease. The lease deed of 1956 purported to carry out the terms of that compromise decree. In this suit the plaintiff-respondent was not impleaded as a party. The plaintiff-respondent claimed that the lease of 1956 was void as it was struck by ss. 52 and 65A of the Transfer of Property Act and s. 64 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The appellant company on the other hand, claimed that a suit of the nature filed by the plaintiff respondent did not lie as it fell outside the purview of s. 42 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877. The trial court decreed the plaintiff-respondent’s suit. The appellant’s appeal was dismissed by the High Court. Hence this appeal.
ISSUE:-
Whether declaratory relief can be granted outside the ambit of Section 42 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877?
JUDGMENT:-
The circumstances in which a declaratory decree under Section 42 should be awarded is a matter of the discretion depending upon the facts of each case. No doubt a complete stranger whose interest is not affected by another’s legal character or who has no interest in another’s property could not get a declaration under Section 42 Specific Relief Act with reference to the legal character or the property involved. Such, however, is not the present case. IN the present case the plaintiff-respondent had not only the rights of a mortgagee decree-holder with regard to the property involved, but he was also the assignee of the rights of the Bank which had got the property in question attached in execution of its decree. From connected special leave petitions against orders u/O. 21, Rule 95, Civil Procedure Code it is found that the plaintiff’s wife became the auction purchaser of this property during the pendency of the litigation now before the court. At the time when he filed the suit the plaintiff may have been looking forward to purchasing the property. Although, the mere possibility of future rights of an intending purchaser could not, by itself be enough to entitle him to get a declaration relating to a purported lease affecting the right to possess and enjoy the property. Yet, Court was of the opinion that the plaintiff possessed sufficient legal interest in the theatre, as a mortgagee as well as an assignee of a decree holder who had got the property attached before he filed his suit, so as to enable him to sue for the declarations he sought. He was not seeking a merely whimsical or eccentric or an unreasonable declaration of a right in property with no enforceable legal claims over it which could remain unaffected by the defendant appellant’s claims as a lessee.
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