Trust Withdraws Supreme Court Challenge With Liberty to File Civil Suit; Lessees Cannot Start Fresh Writ Round to Protect Possession, Supreme Court Rules
High Court Cannot Protect Possession Through Second Writ After Earlier Ruling Relegated Land Dispute to Civil Court: Supreme Court
Facts
The dispute concerns 4,678 square metres of land in T.S. No. 19, Ward No. 54, Block-L, Gaganmahal Village, Hyderabad. M/s Kishan Chand Foundation Trust claimed ownership on the basis of a registered sale deed executed in its favour in 1968.
On 26 June 1997, the Mandal Revenue Officer issued the Trust a notice under Section 7 of the Andhra Pradesh Land Encroachment Act, 1905, asking why it should not be evicted from the land.
The Trust instituted a civil suit, O.S. No. 2364 of 1997. The suit was dismissed on 13 July 2001 for want of pecuniary jurisdiction. Its appeal, A.S. No. 387 of 2001, was subsequently dismissed for non-prosecution on 29 August 2002. Thereafter, the authorities initiated proceedings under Section 6 of the 1905 Act directing delivery of possession.
The Trust challenged those proceedings through Writ Petition No. 23001 of 2004. A Single Judge of the High Court allowed the petition on 26 April 2005 and quashed the Section 7 notice and Section 6 order.
However, on 7 September 2022, the Division Bench reversed that decision. It held that where serious disputes existed regarding title and possession—and the State claimed the property was Government land—the writ court under Article 226 was not the appropriate forum to declare possession or title.
The Trust approached the Supreme Court in SLP (C) No. 16769 of 2022. Initially, status quo was ordered. But on 9 September 2025, the Trust withdrew the SLP with liberty to institute a fresh civil suit. Importantly, the Supreme Court granted no continuing interim protection.
Immediately thereafter, M.A. Garden Function Hall and others, claiming to be lessees of the Trust, filed two fresh writ petitions challenging the State authorities’ action of taking possession.
On 12 September 2025, the Single Judge granted temporary protection, directed the Mandal Revenue Officer to unlock M.A. Garden Function Hall, and permitted the Trust to institute a fresh civil suit and seek interim relief within ten days. The Division Bench affirmed that order on 30 December 2025.
The State of Telangana consequently approached the Supreme Court.
Issues
The principal issue was whether lessees claiming possession through the Trust could maintain a fresh writ petition seeking protection of possession, after the earlier Division Bench had already held that disputed questions of title and possession could not be determined under Article 226 and the Trust’s SLP against that judgment had been withdrawn.
The Court also considered whether the High Court could grant interim protection effectively preserving possession when the Trust had specifically been relegated to a civil suit, and whether the lessees could claim a better procedural position than the Trust through which they derived their possession.
Appellants’ Arguments
The State’s case was essentially that the fresh writ petitions constituted an impermissible attempt to circumvent the earlier proceedings.
The earlier Division Bench judgment dated 7 September 2022 had already held that disputed questions concerning possession and title could not be adjudicated by the writ court.
That judgment remained undisturbed because the Trust withdrew its SLP before the Supreme Court on 9 September 2025.
The Trust was specifically granted liberty to pursue its rights through a fresh civil suit, and the Supreme Court had not continued the earlier status quo protection.
Therefore, according to the State, persons claiming merely as lessees under that very Trust could not institute fresh writ proceedings and obtain possession protection which the Trust itself no longer possessed.
Respondents’ Position
M.A. Garden Function Hall, Mohammed Omer and the other respondents approached the High Court claiming to be lessees of Kishan Chand Foundation Trust.
They challenged the State authorities’ action in taking possession of and locking the premises.
The Single Judge accepted that temporary protection should operate while the Trust exercised the liberty granted by the Supreme Court to institute a fresh civil suit. It therefore ordered the Mandal Revenue Officer to unlock the function hall and gave the Trust ten days to approach the civil court for appropriate interim relief.
The Division Bench subsequently affirmed this arrangement.
Analysis of the Law
The Supreme Court focused on the procedural history and the binding effect of the earlier proceedings rather than deciding the underlying title dispute.
The critical starting point was the 7 September 2022 Division Bench judgment. That judgment had expressly held that Article 226 proceedings were not the forum for declaring title or possession when serious factual disputes existed between the Trust and the State.
When the Trust challenged that judgment before the Supreme Court, it ultimately chose to withdraw its SLP.
The consequence was significant: the Division Bench’s 2022 judgment remained uninterfered with, while the Trust was given liberty to seek adjudication through a fresh civil suit.
The Supreme Court therefore held that it was not open to persons deriving their alleged possession from the same Trust to initiate a second round of writ proceedings seeking substantially the very protection which the earlier proceedings had denied.
The lessees’ rights were derivative: they claimed possession through the Trust. Their procedural position could not be detached from the earlier adjudication concerning their lessor.
Precedent Analysis
This is a short five-page judgment, and the Supreme Court did not undertake a separate discussion of reported precedents.
Instead, the decision turned primarily on the procedural history between the same underlying interests and the effect of the earlier orders passed by the High Court and Supreme Court.
The controlling proposition applied by the Court was that where seriously disputed questions of title and possession require factual adjudication, the writ jurisdiction under Article 226 should not be used as a substitute for an ordinary civil suit.
The judgment is therefore particularly relevant on successive writ proceedings, derivative claims by lessees, disputed possession, and attempts to obtain interim protection through writ jurisdiction after the principal claimant has been relegated to a civil remedy.
Court’s Reasoning
The Supreme Court found the timing and nature of the second round of litigation significant.
The Trust’s SLP was withdrawn on 9 September 2025. No further interim protection was granted.
Yet on or after 11 September 2025, instead of the Trust filing another writ petition, its lessees came forward and instituted fresh writ proceedings seeking protection of possession.
The Court observed that because the lessees claimed possession through the Trust, the earlier orders necessarily affected their attempt to invoke writ jurisdiction.
Once the Division Bench had already held that a writ court could not record a finding regarding possession in this disputed land matter, a second writ petition filed merely for protection of possession ought not to have been entertained.
The Supreme Court went further and observed that it appeared that since the Trust itself could not file another writ petition, the lessees had come forward with fresh writ petitions to secure an interim order that otherwise could only have been considered by the civil court.
Another important circumstance was that the Trust had in fact instituted its civil suit on 16 September 2025, but the Trial Court had not granted interim protection within the ten-day period contemplated by the Single Judge.
The appropriate course was therefore to allow the civil court to decide the pending dispute on its own merits rather than maintain writ-court protection over possession.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court allowed the State of Telangana’s appeals.
It set aside:
- the Single Judge’s common order dated 12 September 2025 in W.P. Nos. 27715 and 27718 of 2025; and
- the Division Bench’s common judgment dated 30 December 2025 in W.A. Nos. 1031 and 1032 of 2025.
Crucially, the Supreme Court expressly declined to interfere with the State’s action of locking the premises.
At the same time, it did not determine ownership or title to the property in favour of the State. Since a civil suit had already been instituted, the Court directed that it be decided on its own merits.
Key Takeaway
A lessee claiming through a lessor cannot use a fresh writ petition to secure possession protection after the lessor’s earlier writ proceedings have ended with disputed title and possession being relegated to a civil suit.
The judgment is therefore less about deciding who owns the Hyderabad property and more about preventing a second round of writ proceedings from being used to circumvent the procedural consequence of the earlier litigation.
Case Details
Case: State of Telangana & Ors. v. M.A. Garden Function Hall & Ors. etc.
Court: Supreme Court of India, Civil Appellate Jurisdiction
Case: Civil Appeal Nos. 12895–12896 of 2026, arising out of SLP (C) Nos. 3016–3017 of 2026
Bench: Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar
Date: 16 September 2026
Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 995
Result: State’s appeals allowed; High Court orders protecting the lessees’ possession set aside; State’s locking of the premises left undisturbed; pending civil suit to be decided on its own merits.
