The Allahabad High Court has held that the State cannot resist execution of a decree by pleading collusion between the decree holder and State authorities, where it contested the suit and every appeal from the Trial Court up to the Supreme Court.

Justice Chandra Kumar Rai held,

“The judgements from Trial Court to Apex Court further demonstrate that at every stage, State was given opportunity through Counsel/special Counsel to argue the matter, as such, it cannot be said that the judgement was passed on the basis of collusion between the plaintiff of the suit and State authorities.”

The dispute concerned plots at Village Meerapur Danda in Hamirpur, adjoining the Collector's bungalow and let out to the State for construction there. The petitioners' predecessors were recorded as zamindars, with “Sarkar” recorded in occupancy tenancy. Alleging breach of the lease, the landowners sued in 1972 for ejectment of the State along with rent and damages.

Both suits were decreed on 19.12.1977, and the decree was affirmed in first appeal in 1980, in second appeal in 1982 and by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile the Collector had the revenue entry altered from non-agricultural to agricultural. A Division Bench quashed that order in 1988 as illegal and without jurisdiction, and the State's special leave petition against that judgment was also dismissed.

Two suits filed by the State in 1993 for cancellation of the 1977 decree ended with their plaints rejected under Order VII Rule 11 CPC in revisions decided in 2002, and special leave petitions against that rejection were dismissed in 2003. In the execution that followed, the executing court ordered attachment of the District Magistrate's car and his office furniture.

The landowners challenged the revisional order dated 20.4.2011 remanding the matter to the Trial Court; the State challenged orders passed in execution and the revisional orders dated 17.3.2012.

Counsel for the landowners submitted that the question of fraud stood decided against the State and confirmed up to the Supreme Court, and could not be raised over again.

The Additional Advocate General submitted that the executing court had wrongly refused the State leave to file supplementary objections under Section 47 CPC, and that the revisional court had treated a binding order of the Supreme Court dated 23.02.2009 as obiter in breach of Articles 141 and 144 of the Constitution. It was argued that under Section 44 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 execution proceedings are a valid collateral forum for establishing fraud over sovereign Nazul land, a threshold rejection under Order VII Rule 11 CPC having decided nothing on its merits.

The Court noted that the State had filed a written statement admitting the letting, and issues were framed and that both sides led evidence. It held that this was not an order passed against the State unheard, but a controversy adjudicated in a regular suit.

Finding no illegality in the Trial Court's exercise of jurisdiction, the Court held that the decrees in the two suits and the judgment in the writ petition, all maintained up to the Supreme Court, “are not collusive and have binding effect”.

On the State's petitions against the execution proceedings, it held,

“there is no illegality in the impugned orders passed in the pending execution proceeding as the judgement and decree passed in the original suit has been affirmed up to Apex Court, as such, raising the objection in the execution proceeding that decree passed by Trial Court which has been affirmed up to Apex Court is the result of collusion between the plaintiff and State authorities cannot be accepted in any manner.”

Accordingly, the revisional order dated 20.4.2011 was set aside and the landowners' petitions allowed, the pending suit of 1991 for damages to be decided preferably within four months. The State's three petitions were dismissed, the executing court being directed to decide the pending execution preferably within three months.