INJUNCTION SUIT AND DEFENDANT LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES

can we bring legal heir's of deceased defendant in bare injunction suit? if no, is there any citation ruled by any state's courts?

Ramachandra vs Laxmana Rao AIR 2000 Kant 298, ILR 2000 KAR 2341, Section 146 of the CPC. This provision reads: "146. Proceedings by or against representatives.--Save as otherwise provided by this Code or by any law for the time being in force, where any proceeding may be taken or application made by or against any person, then the proceeding may be taken or the application may be made by or against any person claiming under him". On an analytical reading of Section 146, one legal position which clearly emerges is that where any legal proceeding may be taken or an application for a legal proceeding may be made by or against any person, then, that proceeding may also be taken or application for the same may be made by or against any persons claiming under him. This provision deals with legal proceedings by or against representatives of the parties to a dispute or to a decree or final order of any competent Court. Its operation is general in nature, except that it is circumscribed by the beginning saving clause "save as otherwise provided by this Code or any law for the time being in force".

The Supreme Court in the case of Jugalkishore Saraf v Raw Cotton Company Limited, AIR 1955 SC 376 has, in regard to the curtailing effect of this saving clause on the scope of Section 146, said: "The effect of the expression "save as otherwise provided in this Code" contained in Section 146 is that a person cannot make an application under Section 146 if other provisions of the Code are applicable to it".


Karnataka High Court has held in Hajaresab -v.- Udachappa, since deceased by his L.Rs., and others. ILR 1984 KAR 900 " Therefore, under these circumstances, what emerges is that though the decree for injunction does not run with the land, still under Section 50 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the legal representatives of the deceased defendant, against whom the decree for injunction is passed, would be liable for violation of that decree. However, their liability, as held in Sakarlal's Case, would be limited to the attachment of the property of the deceased, which has come to their hands. The other penalty imposed by Order 21 Rule 32 of the Code of Civil Procedure, by arrest and detention in Civil prison cannot be enforced in the case of the legal representatives at all."