Summary
The Court set aside an interim restraint on alienation only insofar as it affected the properties claimed by third-party appellants who had neither been impleaded nor heard. The plaintiffs themselves had pending applications describing those parties as necessary and proper. Those applications had to be decided after hearing them; if impleaded, the injunction request concerning their properties could then be reconsidered on its merits. No final title or partition issue was decided.
Issues
- Whether interim relief could affect the appellants’ claimed property interests before their pending impleadment applications were decided and they were heard.
Held
- The trial court had refused injunction partly because properties stood in the names of firms, trusts or companies absent from the suit. The plaintiffs’ own pending impleadment applications accepted the appellants as necessary and proper parties. The High Court could not impose the challenged restraint affecting their interests without joining and hearing them in these circumstances. (¶¶ 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 5.1, 6)
- Relief was confined to the appellants’ affected properties enumerated in the operative order. The trial court first had to determine impleadment after hearing the proposed defendants, then, if they were added, reconsider interim injunction for those properties independently according to law. (¶¶ 7, 8)
Result
Appeals allowed to the stated extent. The High Court’s one-seventh-share alienation restraint was set aside only for the properties and parts enumerated in paragraph 7. Impleadment applications were to be decided first, followed, if allowed, by fresh consideration of interim relief; no costs.