Disputed property rights should not be adjudicated under Article 226 while civil suits remain pending.

The petitioners, trustees of Panihati Unnoyan Trust, sought a direction preventing the police from granting permission to respondent no. 5, Garh Bhabani Sarbojanin Durgotsav Committee, to hold Durga Puja on land claimed by the petitioners.

Two civil suits concerning the property were pending: Title Suit No. 188 of 2017, filed by respondent no. 6, and Title Suit No. 258 of 2015, filed by the petitioners, in which respondent no. 7 was a defendant.

In the latter suit, the civil court permitted respondent no. 7 to perform Durga Puja in 2015 and subsequently directed the parties to maintain status quo regarding possession; the puja was performed from 2015 to 2025.

The petitioners relied on orders in the civil proceedings and two other decisions to support their claim that the respondents had no right to use the land.

Whether the High Court should direct the police not to grant permission for the proposed Durga Puja when the parties’ rights to the land were disputed in pending civil suits.

Whether the writ court should determine the petitioners’ title or the parties’ respective rights to use the land under Article 226 while those civil suits remained pending.

The Court considered its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution in the context of unresolved property disputes and held that determining title or competing rights to use land is not an appropriate exercise in writ proceedings when those matters are pending before the civil court.

A party alleging denial of its rights over immovable property should seek appropriate relief from the civil court.

The Court distinguished Subhas Chandra Bose v. The State of West Bengal and M/s Bibhuti Bhusan Dutt Estates Pvt. Ltd. v. State of West Bengal on their facts.

The pending suits placed both the petitioners’ ownership claim and the respondents’ asserted use of the land in dispute.

The status quo order in Title Suit No. 258 of 2015 remained in force, and the respondents had performed the puja for ten years after the 2015 order without contemporaneous steps by the petitioners to challenge that practice.

The Court therefore declined to treat the petitioners as established absolute owners or to determine the parties’ respective rights in the writ petition; those questions were for the civil court.

The precedents cited by the petitioners did not alter that conclusion because they arose in materially different circumstances.

It expressly clarified that it had not decided the parties’ respective rights over the land, leaving the petitioners to seek appropriate relief before the civil court if their rights were being denied.