The single judge bench of the Tripura High Court held that in a suit for injunction, the plaintiff also may seek a decree for damages subject to specific circumstances of the case.
Brief Facts:
The factual matrix of the case is that the Plaintiff/Appellant is the owner of the hotel Anjana. The Appellant constructed the multi-storied building in pursuance of the developer agreement and after the construction of the said building on the lands of the Respondent/Defendants, three rooms on the ground floor was distributed to the developer i.e. Plaintiff. The Plaintiff alleged that the defendants in addition to the developer agreement had to make some payment of Rs.63,00,000/- (sixty-three lakhs only) for the purpose of initial work demolition of the old structures and building, cutting of the trenches, obtaining Municipal Permission for construction, payment of taxes, etc. However, the defendants failed to make the payment. Thereafter, it was decided that two rooms covering the rent on the ground floor of the said building to be transferred/sold by the respondent-defendants to the developer plaintiff. For which the registered agreement of sale was executed between them. Furthermore, Ratan Debnath did not vacate the room after being requested by the defendants. Therefore, an eviction case was instituted. After that, the Plaintiff filed a suit for specific performance of the contract against the defendants for getting the sale deed registered and for taking possession of the said two rooms on the ground floor of the said multi-storied building, as per the Agreement of Sale and the said suit is still pending for adjudication. Furthermore, the Plaintiff alleged that after the filing of the civil suit, the defendants became more vindictive in causing harm and harassment to the Plaintiff and even started causing disturbances in the business of the Plaintiff.
Therefore, the plaintiff filed the suit before the Learned Trial Court for declaration, perpetual injunction, and also for recovery of the amount of loss suffered by the plaintiff and mandatory injunction. The trial court partly decreed the suit in the favour of the Plaintiff and did not consider the damages sustained by the appellant for illegally shutting down Room No.2 of the 3rd floor of the suit premise. Aggrieved by this, the present appeal is filed.
Contentions of the Appellant:
The Appellant submitted that the defendants without any authority caused the disturbance in the business of the Appellant/Plaintiff due to which the Plaintiff suffered the loss at the rate of Rs.15,00/- per day. Furthermore, it was especially averted in the prayer clause.
Observations of the Court:
The Hon’ble Court observed that the Plaintiff sought relief for damages but the same was not considered by the trial court. Also, Plaintiff just merely stated the amount but failed to provide any proper account of the damage, sustained by the appellants due to the wrongful act of the respondent-defendants
Furthermore, the court observed that it is a well-settled position of law that in a suit for injunction the plaintiff also may claim relief for damages.
Based on these considerations, the court remanded the case back to the trial court with a direction to the appellant-plaintiff to adduce evidence in respect of damages mentioned by him to enable the Learned Trial Court below to give a specific finding on this point.
The decision of the court:
With the above direction, the court allowed the appeal of the Plaintiff.
Case Title: Sri Subhash Chakraborty V. Smt. Sandhya Deb
Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Biswajit Palit
Case No.: RFA No.13 of 2024
Advocate for the Petitioner: Mr. D. Deb, Adv
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