Payment of Tax Receipts Is Not A Conclusive Proof of Possession of Property: Andhra Pradesh High Court

"Suit For Permanent Injunction Cannot Succeed Without Proof Of Physical Exclusive Possession On Date Of Filing ", High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Amaravati, in a significant ruling on civil procedure and evidence law, has restored the trial court's dismissal of a suit for permanent injunction, holding that the plaintiffs utterly failed to establish their physical exclusive possession over the disputed agricultural land as on the date of filing the suit.

Justice Venuthurumalli Gopala Krishna Rao, allowing the second appeal preferred by the defendants, set aside the judgment of the first appellate court and revived the trial court's decree, observing that the first appellate court had drawn perverse inferences from documentary evidence and erred in reversing a well-reasoned finding of fact.

The dispute arose between two branches of the same family — the Mukkaiah branch (defendants-appellants) and the Bheemaiah branch (plaintiffs-respondents) — over southern Ac.16.00 cents out of a total Ac.32.00 cents of agricultural land in R.S.No.394, Lakkavaram, West Godavari District. Both branches traced their ancestry to one Siddayya, whose sons Mukkaiah and Bheemaiah allegedly received the land in an oral partition after their predecessors paid Nazarana to the original Zamindar owner.

The plaintiffs filed O.S.No.593 of 1990 before the I Additional Junior Civil Judge, Kovvur, seeking permanent injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with their alleged possession over the southern Ac.16.00 cents. The defendants, in their written statement, flatly denied the alleged oral partition and asserted that their father Mukkaiah alone had paid the Nazarana and had been in continuous possession of the entire Ac.32.00 cents since inception. The trial court dismissed the suit for failure to prove possession. The first appellate court reversed this finding and granted the injunction, prompting the defendants to approach the High Court.

The substantial questions of law framed by the High Court were whether the appellate court was correct in reversing the trial court's findings contrary to evidence and pleadings; whether injunction could be granted when the alleged oral partition was not established; and whether granting injunctive relief without establishing exclusive physical possession was legally sustainable.

Court's Observations and Judgment

The High Court extensively examined the oral and documentary evidence adduced by the plaintiffs. Regarding the testimony of P.W.1 — the plaintiff No.2 himself — the Court found it wholly unreliable, noting that by the date of Mukkaiah's death, P.W.1 was only about ten years old and therefore "not having any personal knowledge about the jointness of Mukkaiah and Bheemaiah" or about the alleged partition between them. He admitted in cross-examination that no document was filed to show his grandfather paid Nazarana, that there was no documentary proof of partition, and that no patta was produced to establish Bheemaiah's ownership of the suit schedule land.

"The plaintiffs failed to prove that they are in possession and enjoyment over the plaint schedule property by the date of filing the suit."

The evidence of P.W.2 and P.W.3 fared no better. P.W.2, a relative of the plaintiffs, confined his deposition entirely to ownership assertions and said nothing about the source of acquisition or the time at which the plaintiffs came into possession. P.W.3 admitted he could not say who had been in possession of the land and was unaware of how the eastern side landowner came into possession. The Court held that this evidence was "not even sufficient to come to a conclusion that the plaintiffs are in possession and enjoyment over the plaint schedule property as on the date of filing of the suit."

On the question of documentary evidence, the Court critically examined the tax receipts relied upon by the plaintiffs as Exs.A-4 and A-10. The Court found that the suit schedule survey number and extent were not mentioned anywhere in these receipts, making them incapable of establishing any nexus between the plaintiffs and R.S.No.394 specifically.

"Payment of tax receipts is not a conclusive proof of possession of the property — tax receipts show only that a person paid land revenue and not that he was in actual physical possession of the specific suit property."

The most sharply-criticised part of the first appellate court's judgment concerned its treatment of Exs.A-1 to A-3, which were the plaint and decree in an earlier suit O.S.No.678/1988 filed by the defendants against third parties. The first appellate court had drawn the inference that since the defendants in that suit claimed possession of only Ac.16.00 cents against third parties, they were implicitly admitting the plaintiffs' possession over the remaining Ac.16.00 cents. The High Court rejected this reasoning outright. The recital in that earlier plaint stated only that revenue authorities had "by mistake" noted Ac.16.00 cents in the defendants' name and the remaining Ac.16.00 cents was "in the name of Bheemaiah" in the records — a factual averment about erroneous revenue entries, not an admission of Bheemaiah's possession.

"It does not mean that the defendants herein are admitting that the plaintiffs herein are in possession and enjoyment of Ac.16.00 cents of land. Therefore, Ex.A-1 to Ex.A-3 are no way useful to prove that the plaintiffs herein are in possession and enjoyment of the plaint schedule property."

The Court equally condemned the first appellate court's finding that the defendants "could not file any scrap of paper" to prove their rights over Ac.32.00 cents — pointing out that it was the plaintiffs who sought relief and bore the burden of proof, not the defendants.

On the question of the suit being maintainable at all, the Court applied the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Ananthula Sudhakar v. P. Buchi Reddy (Dead) by LRs., which lays down that where the title of the plaintiff is in dispute or under a cloud and the defendant asserts title, the plaintiff is required to file a suit for declaration of title along with the consequential relief of injunction. A suit for bare injunction simpliciter will not lie in such circumstances.

"Where the plaintiff is in possession, but his title to the property is in dispute, or under a cloud, or where the defendant asserts title thereto and there is also a threat of dispossession from defendant, the plaintiff will have to sue for declaration of title and the consequential relief of injunction."

In the present case, the defendants had categorically disputed the plaintiffs' title in their written statement, denying the entire story of oral partition. Yet the plaintiffs neither sought a declaration of title in the original plaint nor moved to amend the relief clause during the prolonged pendency of the suit — a fatal omission that independently disentitled them to the relief of injunction.

Restating the fundamental rule governing bare injunction suits, the Court held: "In a suit for bare injunction, the plaintiffs have to plead and prove that they are in physical exclusive possession over the plaint schedule property. But the plaintiffs herein have failed to prove that they are in physical possession over the plaint schedule property as on the date of filing of the suit."

The Andhra Pradesh High Court allowed the second appeal, set aside the first appellate court's judgment and decree dated 27.02.2006 in A.S.No.25 of 1999, and restored the trial court's decree dismissing the suit. The Court directed each party to bear their own costs. The judgment reaffirms the foundational principle that in a suit for permanent injunction, proof of actual physical exclusive possession as on the date of the suit is sine qua non, and that tax receipts, without reference to the specific survey number of the suit property, carry no evidentiary weight to establish possession.

Date of Decision: 09 March 2026