Allahabad High Court deprecates practice of district magistrate passing orders in private disputes

Justices Alok Mathur and Amitabh Kumar Rai

Land dispute

The case arose out of a dispute among brothers over co-shared land in Ayodhya. The petitioner alleged that his brother had sold his undivided share to third parties without partition and sought to hand over possession of the roadside portion, leading to conflict. The petitioner filed a civil suit, which was pending.

During the pendency of the proceedings, the petitioner approached the district magistrate seeking protection from interference in possession.

Acting on the application, the district magistrate directed an inquiry by the sub-divisional magistrate and restrained the private respondents from interfering in the petitioner’s possession. Similar directions were also issued by the local station house officer, directing the subordinates to conduct an inquiry and to stop the illegal encroachments.

The petitioner approached the high court seeking compliance with the administrative directions issued by the DM.

Abuse of power

At the outset, the Allahabad High Court noted that undoubtedly there was some dispute between the brothers about the partition of the land of which all of them are tenure holders. It further noted that the litigation between the petitioner and the private respondents was pending before the competent court.

In a strongly worded remark, the Allahabad High Court held that the district magistrate does not have any power to grant injunction-like relief or adjudicate disputes between private individuals, powers that lie exclusively with civil courts. It said passing such orders while civil litigation was pending amounted to unauthorised interference in judicial proceedings.

“Such exercise of power is clearly abuse of power vested in the District Magistrate and such exercise of power is clearly deprecated,” the Allahabad High Court noted.

The Allahabad High Court observed that the district magistrate’s action amounted to “interference in the courts of justice,” particularly because the matter was already before a court of competent civil jurisdiction.

It further noted that government orders already exist restraining district authorities from stepping into purely private disputes.

“We further find that already there are several Government orders whereby the district authorities have been restrained from interfering in the private dispute between the parties in as much as they do not have any right or jurisdiction to decide the dispute between private individuals and the right is only vested in civil courts,” the bench said.

Refusing relief to the petitioner, the court held that no order can be passed under Article 226 of the constitution for compliance with such ‘illegal and arbitrary orders’.

“In the aforesaid circumstances no order can be passed by this Court in exercise of powers under Article 226 of Constitution of India for compliance of such illegal and arbitrary orders passed by the District Magistrate, Ayodhya and the Station House Officer, Maharajganj,” the court said while dismissing the plea.

Patna High Court ruling

• In another case, the Patna High Court set aside a 2021 order passed by the district magistrate of Bhagalpur in a 57-year-old land dispute case, ruling that administrative authorities cannot ignore settled civil court findings regarding land titles.
• Justice Sourendra Pandey was hearing a plea of the land owner’s grandson challenging an order issued by the collector (DM) of Bhagalpur that overturned a previous decision that protected the petitioner’s family’s long-standing jamabandi (land records).
• The order stated that when a matter with respect to title has already been settled between the parties way back in the year 1983, till the stage of the high court, and no further petition is pending before any other court, cancelling the long-standing jamabandi in favour of the petitioner, cannot be permitted in the eyes of law.