High Court Can't Ordinarily Reappreciate Evidence In Article 226 Proceedings : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court (on January 02) reiterated that the High Court cannot reappreciate the evidence unless the appropriate Court has exceeded its jurisdiction or acted perversely.“It is a well-established principle that the High Court, while exercising its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, cannot reappreciate the evidence and arrive at a finding of facts unless the authorities below had either exceeded its jurisdiction or acted perversely.,” held Justices Sanjay Karol and CT Ravikumar.Reliance was placed on Chandavarkar Sita Ratna Rao v. Ashalata S. Guram, Shamshad Ahmad v. Tilak Raj Bajaj and Krishnanand v. Director of Consolidation. In all these cases, the above observation has been made.The present case involved a land dispute (Khasra No.103). The respondent asserted a right over the disputed land and relied on revenue records to support its case. On the other hand, the appellant had filed an application under U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950, asserting that the disputed land was Johad (Pond) rather than the "Oosar". Accordingly, the land was excluded from the consolidation scheme as it served as a water reservoir, used by the villagers.However, the concerned authority, after examining the evidence, found that the disputed land was Johad (Pond). Further, it was held that a valid patta was never executed in favour of the respondent. It also found the entries to be false and fictitiously made and that no record of such allotment. Further, it was ordered that the revenue entries be corrected and the alleged patta be cancelled. Challenging this, the respondent approached the Additional Commissioner but to no avail. The findings of the Court was confirmed by the Commissioner.Consequently, the matter reached the High Court, wherein it reversed the findings of the above authorities. The Court that the disputed land was mistakenly recorded as “Johad (pond)”, in revenue records due to some confusion. The same should have been treated as “Oosar”. It further observed that the writ petitioner could not be responsible for the non-availability of allotment files. Thus, the writ petition was decided in favour of the respondent. Against this background, the matter came up before the Apex Court.The Division Bench held that the High Court had exceeded its authority by setting aside the concurrent findings.“There was no basis for the High Court to ignore the findings of the authorities and come to its own conclusion by appreciating the evidence on record. The same was outside the purview of Article 226 of the Constitution of India in the absence of any perversity or illegality afflicting the findings of the authorities.”It added that the findings of the High Court were unsupported by the evidence on record. Further, the High Court had also set aside the order of permanent injunction against the respondent. The Apex Court “deprecated” the manner in which the same was set aside and observed:“Second, that an order granting a permanent injunction, with the authority having given its independent and anxious consideration, cannot be set aside in such a cursory and callous manner, more so under the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court. A permanent injunction is an order of substance and ought to be treated as such. This manner of setting aside the permanent injunction has to be deprecated.”Based on this, the findings of the concerned authorities were restored and the impugned order was set aside.Case Name: AJAY SINGH v. KHACHERU AND ORS., Special Leave Petition(Civil) Nos. 34407-34408 of 2013Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 29Click here to read the judgment

High Court Can't Ordinarily Reappreciate Evidence In Article 226 Proceedings : Supreme Court

Gyanvi Khanna

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