Allahabad High Court rejects State’s claim that decades-old eviction decrees over Collector’s bungalow land were collusive

The dispute concerned plots in Hamirpur recorded in the names of the private parties’ predecessors as owners or zamindars and let to the State for use near the Collector’s bungalow.

In suits filed in 1972, the civil court decreed ejectment and related relief against the State; those decrees were affirmed through appeals and by the Supreme Court.

A separate order changing the plots’ revenue classification from non-agricultural to agricultural was quashed by the High Court, and that determination was also sustained by the Supreme Court.

The State later filed suits seeking, among other relief, cancellation of the earlier decrees.

The High Court rejected those plaints under Order VII Rule 11 CPC, and the Supreme Court dismissed the State’s challenges.

In the ensuing proceedings, the private parties challenged revisional orders concerning an application in a pending suit and sought its expeditious disposal; the State challenged orders made in execution proceedings, alleging collusion and fraud in the earlier decrees.

Whether the State could reopen, in the pending suit and execution proceedings, the allegation that the earlier decrees and determinations were collusive or fraudulent, despite their having been contested and upheld through the appellate process, including by the Supreme Court.

Whether the revisional court’s orders allowing the State’s revisions concerning the pending suit should be set aside.

Whether the orders made in the execution proceedings should be set aside on the State’s grounds.

The Court treated the earlier judgments and decrees, having been reached after the State had an opportunity to plead, adduce evidence, and argue at successive judicial stages, as binding and not open to collateral challenge on an unsubstantiated allegation of collusion.

It also relied on the prior rejection of the State’s suits under Order VII Rule 11 CPC, including the finding that the pleadings lacked particulars of fraud required by Order VI Rule 4 CPC.

The State invoked Section 44 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, Section 47 and Section 151 CPC, and authorities concerning fraud and nullity; the Court did not accept those submissions as a basis to reopen the adjudicated dispute in the proceedings before it.

The Court’s reasoning rested on the binding effect of the prior adjudications and the absence of any basis to treat them as collusive.

The Court examined the original trial record and noted that the State had filed a written statement, the civil court had framed issues and recorded findings on ownership and the State’s tenancy, and the decree had been affirmed on appeal and by the Supreme Court.

It also considered the High Court’s earlier decision quashing the change in land classification and the rejection of the State’s later cancellation suits, which had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

In those circumstances, the Court found no basis for the State to characterize the earlier adjudications as collusive or to use the pending suit or execution proceedings to relitigate the dispute.

It dismissed Matters Under Article 227 Nos. 12516, 12517 and 12518 of 2023, declined to interfere with the impugned execution orders, and directed the executing court to decide the pending execution proceedings expeditiously, preferably within three months of production of a certified copy of the judgment.

No order as to costs was made.