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6.1. A decisive legal correction has to be made with regard to the maintainability of a suit for bare mandatory injunction. It held that construction of a wall on disputed land amounts to trespass and dispossession, for which the efficacious remedy is a suit for possession.

Since the plaintiffs sought only removal of the wall without claiming possession, the suit was held barred under Section 41(h) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963. It was further held that both the Trial Court and the First Appellate Court committed a legal error in granting injunction when the proper remedy was for ejectment or seeking possession, and answered the substantial question of law in favour of the defendant. 6.2. Secondly, the High Court supplied additional reasoning on the nature of title flowing from the sale deed, clarifying that a Maurusee Kashtkar (Class VIII hereditary tenant) has no transferable ownership rights. Although the sale deed was executed jointly by Bashir Khan (tenant) and Laxminarayan (one of the recorded co-owners), the Court made it  clear that ownership could pass only to the extent of the co-owner’s share, and not that of the tenant. This clarification substantially diluted the conclusiveness of the plaintiffs’ title, which had been assumed by the courts below without examining the limits of transferability under the revenue law.

15. Before we go to examine the applicability of these cases to the facts in issue, we would like to first extract Section 41(h) of the Specific Relief Act, which reads as follows:

“41. Injunction when refused.— An injunction cannot be granted—

(a) to (g)……………………………….

(h) when equally efficacious relief can certainly be obtained by any other usual mode of proceeding except in case of breach of trust;

(ha) to (j)………………………………”

16. As is evident from Section 41(h) of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, one of the statutory grounds for refusal of an injunction is the availability of an equally efficacious remedy. This rule, being expressly prescribed by the statute, circumscribes the discretion of courts in granting injunctive relief where such an alternative remedy exists. The expression “equally efficacious remedy”, as rightly explained by the High Court, denotes a remedy which would place the Plaintiffs in the same position in which he would have been had the relief of injunction not been sought. There are, however, limited categories of cases where a suit for mandatory injunction, by itself, may constitute an equally efficacious remedy. The factual matrix in Sant Lal Jain v. Avtar Singh (supra) and Joseph Severance and Others v. Benny Mathew and Others (supra) are illustrative of such situations, where the grant of a mandatory injunction was found to be appropriate in the absence of a prayer for possession.

17.2.This Court reversed the findings of the High Court and restored the decree in favour of the appellant, holding that the respondent’s subsequent purchase of the property from the original owner did not extinguish the appellant’s subsisting lease nor legitimise the respondent’s possession. A licensee is bound to first surrender possession upon termination and cannot set up title in himself while continuing in possession. There was no merger of rights since the licence had already been revoked prior to the sale. The Court reiterated that, where possession is permissive and no dispute of title arises, a mandatory injunction itself constitutes an efficacious remedy, and the plaintiff cannot be non-suited merely because the relief effectively results in recovery of possession. Accordingly, the appeal was allowed and the respondent was directed to deliver vacant possession to the appellant.