Decrees for mandatory injunction cannot be substituted with monetary compensation as a relief without a specific prayer or consent.

The appellants are legal heirs of Om Parkash, who filed two suits against the respondents. Suit No. 426/1996 sought a mandatory injunction to remove an illegal wall built on a common open space.

Suit No. 148/2000 sought the removal of a school building lintel placed on the plaintiff’s wall.

The Trial Court decreed both suits in favor of the plaintiff, and the First Appellate Court upheld these decrees.

In the first round of Second Appeals, the Punjab and Haryana High Court modified the decrees to award monetary compensation instead of removal, which the Supreme Court set aside in 2013 due to a lack of substantial questions of law.

On remand, the High Court again set aside the decrees for removal and directed the Executing Court to assess the value of the construction for monetary compensation to be paid to the appellants.

1. Whether the High Court was settled in law to set aside a decree for mandatory injunction and substitute it with monetary compensation in the absence of a prayer for damages or consent by the decree-holder.

2. Whether the High Court could direct an Executing Court to assess the value of property after setting aside the very decree that would have powered the execution proceedings.

3. Whether the High Court erred in reversing findings of fact without framing or adjudicating actual substantial questions of law under Section 100 of the CPC.

Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), 1908, which restricts the High Court’s jurisdiction in Second Appeals to cases involving substantial questions of law.

The principles governing the grant of relief under the Specific Relief Act and the procedural limits of Order XXI of the CPC, which dictates that an Executing Court cannot act in the absence of a valid, subsisting decree.

A court cannot grant a relief (monetary compensation) that was never prayed for by the plaintiff nor consented to by the parties.

The Supreme Court observed that the High Court committed a jurisdictional error by reversing the concurrent findings of the lower courts on "irrelevant considerations".

The High Court ignored that the plaintiff never sought damages; thus, forcing the legal heirs to accept money instead of the removal of the encroachment was impermissible.

By setting aside the original decrees, the High Court created a procedural vacuum where the Executing Court was asked to perform a valuation without a supporting decree, a course not recognized under Order XXI of the CPC.

The Court highlighted that the High Court repeated the same error for which it was previously remanded—failing to properly frame and decide substantial questions of law and instead making out a "new prayer" for the parties.

The High Court's decision was based on the factually incorrect premise that the Trial Court had found the wall to be "common," whereas the Trial Court had actually found it to be an illegal encroachment.

It held that the High Court’s approach resulted in a miscarriage of justice by imposing unwanted monetary relief and failing to adjudicate the merits under Section 100 of the CPC.

The matter was remanded to the High Court for fresh consideration of the Second Appeals (RSA Nos. 363 & 364 of 2008) strictly in accordance with law, with a request for expeditious disposal.