Their sale deed was cancelled, but they have lived there since 1987 — and that is enough for an injunction

A widow and her minor daughter were refused protection because the document behind their title had gone. The High Court holds possession admitted by the other side makes a prima facie case on its own.

A suit is pending about who owns a house. While it runs, someone has to live there, and the question of who may be removed in the meantime is decided by a temporary injunction. On 23 September 2026 the Allahabad High Court at Lucknow allowed an appeal against the refusal of one.

What the trial court refused

The appellants sued for a temporary injunction under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the Code, restraining the respondents from interfering with their peaceful possession of the property.

The respondents objected and filed written statements, contending the suit was not maintainable because the appellants had no title to the property. The trial court accepted that and rejected the application in July 2025. The appeal came under Order XLIII Rule 1(r) read with Section 104.

That framing is worth pausing on, because the trial court's reasoning has a surface logic. If the plaintiffs have no title, why protect them? The answer is that an injunction application is not a title suit in miniature, and refusing one on a finding about title decides at the interim stage the very thing the suit exists to try.

Title and possession are different questions

The respondents’ argument was straightforward: the sale deed on which the appellants relied had been cancelled, so no prima facie case could be made out.

The Court held that unsustainable, and the reason is the distinction at the centre of injunction law. The appellants’ case is not put solely on the cancelled document. It rests on their long, settled and peaceful possession since 1987 — and that possession is admitted by the respondents themselves.

A prima facie case for an injunction does not require the plaintiff to prove ownership. It requires a serious question to be tried and a right the court can protect meanwhile. Settled possession is such a right, and it is protected against everyone except a person who removes the possessor through due process of law.

The three tests for a temporary injunction are cumulative: a prima facie case, a balance of convenience, and irreparable injury if it is refused. Having found the first satisfied on possession alone, the Court turned to the other two.

Balance of convenience

On the second limb the Court set out the circumstances concretely.

The appellants have been in possession for more than three decades. The first appellant is a widow; the second is a minor daughter. The property in dispute is their residential house.

If that possession were disturbed while the suit is pending, the injury would be irreparable — not compensable in money, and not capable of being restored later even if they win the suit. A family evicted from its home during litigation does not get those years back by succeeding at the end of them.

The Court added a warning about self-help. Any attempt to dispossess the appellants forcibly, otherwise than in accordance with the procedure established by law, cannot be permitted and may attract consequences under the applicable penal laws.

The warning about self-help is not incidental. Where a party believes the occupant has no title, the temptation is to take possession and leave the occupant to sue. The Court's answer is that the remedy is a decree, and that acting without one exposes the party to the criminal law.

What was expressly not decided

The judgment is careful about its own limits, and the reservations matter to both sides.

The Court declined, at this stage, to examine the validity of the Power of Attorney on the basis of which the sale deed for the land was executed. Contentions on that were not considered, because any finding could have a bearing on the merits of the suit still pending before the trial court.

It made clear that its observations are confined solely to the prayer for a temporary injunction, will not prejudice either party, and are not to be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits at trial. The trial court is to decide the pending suit independently.

Those reservations also explain why the appeal could succeed without the Court saying anything about who owns the house. The Power of Attorney, the sale deed and its cancellation are all live questions — and all of them belong to the trial.

It is also why the appeal lay at all. An order refusing a temporary injunction is appealable under Order XLIII Rule 1(r), precisely because the harm it permits in the interim may be done long before the suit is decided.

The order

Holding that the appellants had satisfied the requisite tests for the grant of a temporary injunction, the Court set aside the impugned judgment and order of July 2025 and allowed the appeal.

The practical point is one that recurs wherever a title document is under challenge. A defendant who succeeds in getting a sale deed cancelled has not thereby earned the right to take the house. So long as the plaintiff’s possession is long, settled and — as here — admitted, the court will preserve it until the suit decides who is entitled to the property.