'Judicial Murder': Allahabad High Court Orders Administrative Action Against Trial Judge For Ignoring Death Certificate Evidence To Cause Wrongful Gain In Title Dispute
Safiya Malik
The Allahabad High Court Single Bench of Justice Sandeep Jain, while allowing an appeal filed by a municipal body against a decree of mandatory injunction, expressed shock at the conduct of the trial judge for dismissing the photocopy of a death certificate as inadmissible evidence, thereby conferring undue advantage upon the plaintiff in a property title dispute. The Court found the trial judge's reasoning perverse and dishonest, set aside the impugned decree, and directed that the matter be placed before the Chief Justice for initiation of appropriate administrative action against the concerned judicial officer.
The plaintiff, claiming ownership of a plot in Anand Industrial Estate, GT Road, Ghaziabad, filed a suit seeking a mandatory injunction directing the municipal corporation to enter his name as owner in its property register. His claim rested on an ex-parte decree obtained in an earlier civil suit, wherein he had been declared owner by adverse possession, having originally entered the property as a licensee-tenant through his father in 1969.
The municipal corporation, in its defence, contended that the defendant in the earlier suit had died in 1996, prior to the filing of that suit, rendering the decree a nullity. It further submitted that the disputed property stood recorded under a different name in its records and that mutation entries are governed by legal provisions, not court decrees passed against third parties.
The plaintiff submitted the certified copy of the earlier decree, tax payment receipts, an application for name entry, and a legal notice issued under the Nagar Nigam Act. The defendants placed on record a copy of the deceased defendant's death certificate, documents from a Delhi High Court suit, and an ex-parte decree passed therein. The trial court rejected the defendants' documentary evidence as inadmissible photocopies and decreed the suit.
The Court examined the foundational validity of the ex-parte decree on which the plaintiff's entire case rested. It noted that the defendant in the earlier suit had died on 2 April 1996, years before the suit was instituted in 2019 and decided in 2022. Applying precedents of the Supreme Court, the Court observed that "the decree passed in O.S. No. 1126 of 2019 was a nullity, which did not confer any right title or interest in the disputed property in the plaintiff and as such, wherever and whenever the decree was sought to be enforced by the plaintiff, it could have been resisted by the defendants on the ground of being a nullity, which does not act as res-judicata, in any manner whatsoever."
On the trial court's rejection of the death certificate submitted by the defendants, the Court stated that "death and birth certificates are never filed in the original because they always remain with the person concerned or his/her legal heirs, and in a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding, only a true copy of them is filed." It further recorded that "the defendants being the 3rd parties, could never have benefitted from filing the false death certificate of Sushila Mehra" and held there was no justifiable reason to discard it.
On the question of adverse possession claimed by a tenant, the Court observed that "once having entered the disputed property as a tenant, the tenant is not entitled to claim its ownership on the basis of adverse possession, because the tenant is bound to hand over the vacant possession of the disputed property to the landlord/owner and he cannot deny the title of his landlord in the disputed property."
On the evidentiary value of tax payment records and municipal entries, the Court stated that "merely on the basis of payment of house tax of the disputed property, neither any one acquire its ownership nor can proclaim to be its owner, and merely on the basis that the person is recorded as owner in the property register of Municipal Corporation, does not become the owner of the disputed property."
On the conduct of the trial court, the Court recorded that "the reason assigned by the trial court for ignoring the death certificate of Sushila Mehra is shocking, perverse and tainted with extraneous considerations" and further stated that "the conduct of the trial Judge is not above board, who has either due to extraneous reasons or due to lack of competence, has passed the impugned decree, which cannot be legally justified in any manner whatsoever." The Court described it as "a case of deliberate judicial misconduct, which renders the integrity of the Judge doubtful" and characterised it as "a case of daylight judicial murder."
The Court directed: "The appeal is hereby allowed. Consequently, the impugned judgment and decree dated 13.5.2025 is set aside. Plaintiff's original suit no. 960 of 2024 stands dismissed with costs throughout. Office is directed to place this file before the Hon'ble the Chief Justice for taking appropriate action on the administrative side against Trial Judge Shri Jasveer Singh Yadav, the then Civil Judge (Senior Division), Ghaziabad for passing such blatant, dishonest and illegal order."
Advocates Representing the Parties:
For the Appellants: Shreya Gupta
For the Respondents: Ramesh Kumar Singh, Shivam Yadav, Vinay Kumar Singh Chandel
Case Title: Nagar Nigam Ghaziabad And Another v. Indra Mohan Sachdev
Neutral Citation: 2026:AHC:40819
Case Number: First Appeal No. 702 of 2025
Bench: Justice Sandeep Jain
