Case Studies

ILLEGAL POSSESSION OF LAND

Our client was a co-owner of a piece of agricultural land situated in India. The client along with her husband went to England about 40 years back and had been residing there since then.  During this period the client visited India only 6 or 7 times and in her absence, her brothers (who were also the co-owners in the said property) were in possession of the clients share. After the death of her husband, the client came to India and asked her brothers to hand over the possession of her share of the land and the agricultural produce thereof but the defendants refused to do so. Having failed to get help and apt legal advice from any source, the client contacted us from England. On behalf of her we sought the following legal remedies from the Court:

1. Recovery of the amount due from the defendants qua the plaintiffs share in the produce of the said agricultural land by way of a Suit for Recovery.
2. Partition of the property in issue between the co-owners through a Suit for Possession by way of partition.

The said suits were decreed in favour of our client and the defendants were ordered to pay the amount found due towards the plaintiff along with costs of litigation.

FALSE WILL AND FABRICATED RECORD ENTRIES

In a very interesting case the share of our client in the ancestral coparcenary property of his deceased father was taken over by his brother on the basis of a false and fabricated will. The client was residing in Canada whereas the property and the client's brother were based in India. The latter threatened to alienate the land in dispute on the basis of frivolous entries made in his favour in the Revenue Records. The client had lost all hopes of recovering his property. He then contacted us for legal advice and we assured him of our best possible efforts in the case. We on behalf of our client filed a suit for declaration praying for the following reliefs:

1. That the plaintiff be declared as the lawful owner of his share of the ancestral coparcenary property, on the basis of his birth right in such property as a coparcener.
2. That the alleged will be declared as a fabricated document and the entries made in the Revenue records on the basis of such will be held as illegal and inoperative against the plaintiff with respect to his rights in the property in dispute.

Apart from this we also prayed for a decree for grant of permanent injunction restraining the defendant from alienating or encumbering in any manner the property in issue.
The reliefs so requested by us were granted in favour of our client. The purported will was held to be null and void and our client was declared to be the lawful owner of the property in question.

EVICTION OF PROPERTY

Our client was a 56 year old qualified doctor, practicing in the United States. She was the owner and landlord of a shop-cum-flat in Chandigarh which was in possession of the tenants on rent. Being an Indian citizen our client desired to come back to India and intended to run her own clinic in the non-residential portion of the premises in question. She required the possession of her property for bonafide needs of occupation and residence but the tenants refused to vacate it. To help her out of this we filed an Ejectment petition under section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act for ejectment of the tenants from the said property on the following grounds:

1. Non payment of rent by the tenants.
2. Tenants being guilty of change of user of the premises in violation of the local bye-laws.
3. Tenants being guilty of committing a number of acts impairing the value and utility of the premises in question.
4. Bonafide requirement of the premises for own use of the petitioner.

The Ejectment Petition was accepted by the Courts and through an Ejectment Order the tenants were directed to put the petitioner in possession of the property in issue.

FORGED POWER OF ATTORNEY

In a very challenging case pertaining to forged Power of Attorney, our client was a non resident Indian residing in the United Kingdom. He was the owner of a three storey residential building in India with full proprietary rights thereof on freehold basis. A close relative of our client, who was in physical possession of this building, entered into an Agreement to Sell the said property on the basis of a General Power of Attorney purported to be executed in favour of him by our client. But our client contended that he had at no point of time executed any such General Power of Attorney and as such the same was fictitious, forged and fraudulent. On behalf of our client we moved the Court for the following reliefs through a Suit for Declaration:

1. That the General Power of Attorney alleged to be executed by the plaintiff in favour of the defendant is a forged, inoperative and non-est document.
2. Consequently the Agreement to Sell the said property, executed by the defendant on the basis of the said General Power of Attorney is void and has no binding effect on the proprietary rights of the plaintiff.
3. Defendants have no right whatsoever to claim any interest in the suit property or and as such they are trespassers over the said property through wrongful possession of it.
4. Permanent Injunction restraining the defendants from handing over the possession of the suit property to any one.

The Court decreed the suit in favour of our client and held that the alleged Power of Attorney was illegal and inoperative and as such the defendants had no right to interfere in the possessory or ownership rights our client qua the property in dispute.

DIVORCE

In one of the matrimonial cases handled by our lawyers, our client was a resident of a village in northern India. She got married to a U.S. resident in March 1999. Their marriage was solemnized according to Hindu rites at Ludhiana and was got duly registered under the Hindu Marriage Act. Till April the husband and wife lived together in India and thereafter both of them left for USA, the husband on a work visa and his wife on a dependant visa. On reaching USA, the husband told our client that he wanted to severe his wedlock with her as was in a relationship with another girl. He abused and insulted her in every possible manner and meted out acts of mental and physical cruelty to her. Shortly thereafter the husband abandoned the matrimonial home, leaving our client all alone abroad. Due to the acts of cruelty of her husband our client suffered from depression for which she had to take medical treatment at her own cost. Being not very conversant with the legal procedures pertaining to matrimonial reliefs, our client contacted us from USA and narrated her woes. We immediately advised her to move the Indian Courts for divorce. On basis of the above facts we filed a petition for divorce under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act on behalf of her. We pleaded that:

1. The husband had deserted his wife for the last more than two years without any reasonable cause or reason.
2. The husband had treated his wife with cruelty of the gravest nature which caused a reasonable apprehension in the mind of the petitioner that it would be injurious to live with him.
3. The marriage had broken down irretrievably and there is no chance of reconciliation between the parties.

On the basis of the above grounds a decree of divorce was granted to our client.

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