An unsuccessful subsequent challenge to a registered sale deed cannot defeat conveyed car-parking rights.

The property at C-1/E, Green Park Extension, New Delhi, was owned by Nirmal Singh, who reconstructed it into multiple floors.

Under an agreement dated 13 April 2005 with Yashwant Jain, the first, second and upper-ground floors were agreed to be sold along with three individual car-parking spaces on the lower-ground floor.

Nirmal Singh thereafter executed a registered Sale Deed dated 12 July 2006 in favour of Kavita Jain, nominee of Yashwant Jain, concerning the second floor.

The recital granting “one individual big car parking on the Lower Ground Floor” was handwritten in that deed.

Kavita Jain sold the second floor to Anita Lubhana, who in turn sold it to Arun Birla under a registered Sale Deed dated 11 July 2008.

The subsequent deeds expressly included one car-parking space on the lower-ground floor.

Arun Birla filed a suit seeking, inter alia, a permanent injunction restraining Nirmal Singh from obstructing his use of the car-parking space marked P-3.

The Civil Judge held that the sale documents established Birla’s entitlement to one car-parking space and decreed the injunction on 20 July 2017.

On appeal, the District Judge set aside that relief, holding that the handwritten recital in the earlier Sale Deed appeared to be an interpolation and that the parking entitlement was under a cloud because of disputes between Nirmal Singh and Yashwant Jain.

Birla preferred the present second appeal under Section 100 CPC.

Whether Nirmal Singh could defeat Arun Birla’s claim for injunction merely because he had instituted separate proceedings challenging the documents recording the parking entitlement, and whether the institution of such proceedings justified denial of relief in Birla’s suit?

Whether the First Appellate Court was justified in interfering with the Civil Judge’s findings of fact and in setting aside the injunction relating to the car-parking space?

The Court applied Section 100 read with Order XLII CPC, under which a Regular Second Appeal lies only on a substantial question of law, including where the first appellate court’s findings are legally erroneous or perverse.

It applied the principles governing permanent injunctions under the Specific Relief Act, particularly that the plaintiff must establish an enforceable right and entitlement to the property claimed.

The Court also relied on the legal effect of registered sale deeds and the principle that a purchaser derives the rights validly conveyed through the chain of registered title documents.

A party cannot rely merely on a pending or subsequently instituted declaratory challenge to create a cloud over an otherwise established right, particularly where the challenge has failed in the relevant proceedings.

The Court further considered the agreement dated 13 April 2005, which expressly contemplated one individual parking space for each of the three floors.

The Court found that the original agreement between Nirmal Singh and Yashwant Jain expressly included three individual lower-ground-floor parking spaces, one for each floor.

Although Nirmal Singh alleged that the parking recital in the Sale Deed to Kavita Jain had been fraudulently inserted, he had signed the deed, and the subsequent registered deeds in favour of Anita Lubhana and Arun Birla contained a typed and unambiguous recital conveying one car-parking space with the second-floor flat.

Birla’s title and parking entitlement therefore rested not merely on the disputed handwritten recital but also on the subsequent registered conveyances in his chain of title.

The Court further held that Nirmal Singh’s challenges before the arbitral and civil forums had not succeeded; consequently, the First Appellate Court erred in treating the parking right as being under a continuing cloud merely because such proceedings had been instituted or were previously pending.

The Appellate Court’s reliance on the alleged interpolation and subsequent litigation, in disregard of the registered sale-deed chain and the agreement’s express terms, rendered its findings perverse and legally unsustainable.

It held that the institution of separate proceedings challenging the parking documents did not, by itself, justify denying Birla an injunction, and that the First Appellate Court had erred in interfering with the Civil Judge’s findings.

The judgment and decree dated 11 December 2017 of the District and Sessions Judge were set aside, and the Civil Judge’s judgment and decree dated 20 July 2017—restraining Nirmal Singh from causing hindrance or obstruction to Birla’s use of the car-parking space marked P-3 on the lower ground floor—were restored.

The appeal and pending applications were accordingly disposed of.