TMI Blog1981 (3) TMI 259X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... opies of their intended application for the grant of interim relief and also copies of other relevant papers and documents. The plaintiffs also informed the Caveators that they were moving their application for grant of an injunction on 28-10-1980 and the matter would be heard by the Court on that day. But on 28-10-1980 the plaintiff's I. A. No. 1303 of 1980 filed for the purpose of obtaining interim relief was not heard. On that day the I. A. was merely allotted to the second Assistant Judge. Thereafter the second Assistant Judge without giving any notice to the Cavealors, passed an order of injunction as prayed for on the 30th October, 1980 restraining the respondents to the I. A. from holding any meeting or staging any demonstrations or resorting to any other form of direction, etc., in the premises of the Reserve Bank of India, Hyderabad branch, pending further orders on that application. Against this order of the second Assistant Judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad, the Cavealors filed the present C. R. P. 2. The contention of the petitioners is that the interim orders of injunction passed by the second Assistant Judge on 30th Oct., 1980 was null and void as it was passe ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rly necessary parties, there could be no question that they were the parties entitled to be heard and therefore entitled to file a caveat under Section 148-A of the Civil Procedure Code, which they had filed as mentioned above. The lodging of the caveat by the petitioners is. therefore, clearly regular and lawful. Now, under Sub-section (2) of Section 148-A once a party is admitted to the status of a caveator he is clothed with certain rights and duties and it becomes his duty to serve a notice of the caveat lodged by him by registered post on the person or persons by whom the application against the gaveator was going to be moved. This legal task the caveators had fulfilled in this case by serving a notice of lodgment of the caveat on the plaintiffs on 8-10-1980. Then Section 148-A divides and distributes the duties of the applicants for the interlocutory application and the Court between the two Sub-sections (3) and (4) of Section 148-A. Under Sub-section (4) the plaintiffs-applicants should furnish the caveators a copy of the application made by the applicants and also copies of papers and documents on which they are about to rely. This they did on 27-10-1980. They did even more ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... taken that it is the duty of the Court under Section 148-A to give sufficiently reasonable and definite time to the caveators to appear and also to oppose the interlocutory application intended to be moved by the plaintiffs-applicants and the Court should give a specified date for hearing of the interlocutory application. This duty of the Court is clearly different and distinct from the duty of the parties described in Sub-sections (2) and (4) of that section. The duty of the Court under Sub-section (3) is in addition to the other parts assigned to the other parties in the drama of litigation. The furnishing of copies of documents by the plaintiffs to the caveators on 27-10-1980 and informing them of the date of their moving their interlocutory application can-not, therefore, be taken as acts constituting compliance with the specific duty assigned to the Court under Sub-section (3) of Section 148-A. The duty of ihe applicants under Sub-section (4) of Section 148-A is different and distinct from the duty of the Court under Sub-section (3). I, therefore, entertain no doubt whatsoever in holding that the lower Court had erred in passing the impugned order of injunction on 30th Oct., 1 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... one by a direct piece of legislation enacted for that purpose and not by the effect of an indirect legislation as if it were by a side wind. The powers of a Civil Court are too sacrosanct to be allowed to be diluted or to be curtaited by a mere remote implication. I, therefore, hold that as there is no specific provision declaring any action taken by the Court contrary to its mandatory duty under Sub-section (3) to give a notice would be void, the order passed by the Court below on 30-10-1980 is not a nullity. In other words, il appears to me that the mere lodgement of a caveat would not deprive the Court of its power to pass an order even if the caveator was not informed of the dale of hearing of the matter. As the lodgement of a caveat is merely a right to be informed of the hearing date and it has no effect by way of curtailing the powers of a Civil Court to pass an appropriate order on the merits of the case, I hold lhat the order passed in this case on 30th October, 1980 is not without jurisdiction and is, therefore, operative till it is set aside in appropriate proceedings. 6. This leads me to consider the question whether the present revision filed under Section 115 of th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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