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Shri Khereshwar Mahadev Va Dauji Maharaj Samiti, Aligarh v. The State of Uttar Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 362Decided 5 Mar 2025
Crl.A. No.-001098-001099 - 2025 (arising out of SLP(Crl) Nos. 13258-13259/2024)
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Augustine George Masih

Background

The appellant committee managed a temple in Aligarh whose control was disputed by rival committees, with a civil suit (O.S. No. 623 of 2012) pending before the Additional Civil Judge and an earlier appellate order directing the parties to maintain status quo. Separately, a Gram Sabha functionary filed a writ petition asking the Allahabad High Court to enforce a 2007 order directing the temple's possession be handed to the Gram Sabha. The High Court's Division Bench directed the District Magistrate to hand over possession to the Gram Sabha side and later dismissed the temple committee's recall application, without engaging with the pending civil suit or the committee's objection that the writ petitioner lacked authority to sue on the Gram Sabha's behalf.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found the High Court's approach "totally untenable" for ignoring both the pending civil suit's status-quo order and the Sub-Divisional Magistrate's report noting that proceedings could not go forward while that suit was pending. It also held that a legal proceeding required to be brought only pursuant to a Gram Sabha resolution cannot be validly filed by an individual functionary without one: settled law requires that when a statute prescribes a specific manner for doing something, it must be done that way or not at all. The Court allowed the appeals, set aside the High Court's orders, directed the pending civil suit to be decided within six months with the Gram Sabha impleaded as a party, and ordered the existing status quo to continue until that suit is resolved.

Lesson Learnt

A court exercising writ jurisdiction cannot bypass a civil suit already pending between the same parties over the same property, and a person cannot maintain litigation on behalf of a public body like a Gram Sabha without the resolution or authorisation that the law requires for it.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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