Prayagraj, Dec 5 The Allahabad High Court on Monday ordered the immediate restoration of possession of the ancestral house to a woman who was forcibly evicted from it by police and revenue officers.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Arun Kumar passed the order, while terming the dispossession a gross abuse of the process of law.
The bench referred the matter to the Chief Justice for initiating a disciplinary enquiry against Civil Judge (Junior Division), Siddhathnagar, for acting with undue haste and material irregularities.
The court also fined a court official (a Peshkar in the court of CJM) Rs 1 lakh for the illegal dispossession and mental trauma to the petitioner, Soni, and her three minor children.
It was ordered that the official, a respondent in the case, be produced before the authorities for criminal proceedings.
At the heart of the matter is a house, which Soni owned with her husband and his younger brother.
In a part of the house, she ran a beauty parlour – her sole source of livelihood.
According to the court order, the respondent got Soni's husband and his younger brother to sign a house sale deed, dated February 14, 2024, in his name.
On January 13, 2025, Tehsildar, Tehsil Bansi, District Siddharth Nagar, alongwith the police force and respondent no 8, the court official, reached the house of the petitioner and asked her to vacate the house.
When he failed in his attempt to take possession by force, he instituted a lawsuit against the petitioner, her husband Shyamji, and his brother Premji, praying for a decree of permanent injunction restraining the family from taking possession of the property.
On July 18, at the order of the Civil Judge (Junior Division), a heavy police force and a team from the revenue department arrived at the contested property, arrested Soni, and detained in a police vehicle her three children, aged eight, four, and three.
"We find that the trial court has exceeded its jurisdiction in passing the order dated February 05, 2025, and the Administrative Authorities have equally erred in constituting a revenue team for delivering possession to respondent No. 8 and in thereafter dispossessing the defendants, including the petitioner herein, from the suit property," the high court order read.
The court said that the act was a gross abuse of the administrative powers and was wholly without jurisdiction.
"The tearing hurry in which the matter has proceeded raises serious doubt about the bona fides of orders passed by the trial court and the action taken by the Administrative Authorities. The circumstances clearly warrant an inquiry on the administrative side," it said, and disposed of the writ petition.
