Rival Title Claim Over Rented Property Doesn't Make a Person a Necessary Party in an Eviction Suit — Allahabad HC

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Overview

The Allahabad High Court has held that a person who claims an independent, rival title over a rented property does not automatically become a necessary or proper party to an eviction suit pending before a Small Causes Court merely because that claim conflicts with the landlord’s title. Dismissing a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the Court affirmed the rejection of an impleadment application, holding that such a title dispute must be pursued in a separately instituted civil suit rather than injected into eviction proceedings of limited jurisdiction.

Case: Smt. Gayatri Devi v. Smt. Omwati Devi and another
Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 696 (Matters Under Article 227 No. 9537 of 2026)
Bench: Justice Dr. Yogendra Kumar Srivastava
Date: 25 August 2026

Facts

Respondent no. 1, Smt. Omwati Devi, had instituted S.C.C. Suit No. 49 of 2018 before the Judge, Small Causes Court, Aligarh, against respondent no. 2, her tenant, seeking his eviction from a shop and recovery of arrears of rent and damages. Her case was that she was the owner and landlady of the shop under a sale deed dated 05.09.2017, that the tenant paid monthly rent of Rs. 3,500, and that he had defaulted from 04.10.2017, resulting in termination of the tenancy.

The petitioner, Smt. Gayatri Devi, applied for impleadment in that suit (Paper No. 81-Ga, filed under Order I Rule 10 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908). Her claim was that the shop had originally belonged to her husband, Narendra Singh, who had taken a loan from Dinesh Kumar — respondent no. 1’s husband — and that upon repayment of the loan a sale deed dated 19.06.2017 was executed in her favour. She alleged that respondent no. 1 subsequently procured the sale deed dated 05.09.2017 by fraud and misrepresentation, making her — an uneducated woman — sign or affix her thumb impression on documents she was told related to a Rs. 3,00,000 loan transaction, when in fact a sale deed was executed in respondent no. 1’s favour. The petitioner instituted Original Suit No. 485 of 2018 seeking cancellation of the 05.09.2017 sale deed; that suit remains pending before the competent civil court.

The Small Causes Court rejected the impleadment application by order dated 06.02.2024. The petitioner’s revision against that order was dismissed by the Special Judge (Prevention of Corruption Act)/Additional District and Sessions Judge, Aligarh, by order dated 02.05.2026, which also noted that the tenant, in an amended written statement (paragraph 15-A), had accepted respondent no. 1 as his landlady and stated that rent was being deposited in her favour. The petitioner challenged both orders before the Allahabad High Court under Article 227.

What the Court Held

1. The test for impleadment is necessity to the controversy actually before the court, not the size of the outside interest claimed. The Court held that Order I Rule 10 CPC confers power to add a person whose presence is necessary for effective and complete adjudication of the questions in the suit, and that “the exercise of such power is not governed merely by the existence of an interest, however substantial, claimed by the person seeking impleadment in the subject property.” It distinguished a necessary party — one in whose absence no effective order can be made — from a proper party, whose presence merely enables complete adjudication though an effective order can be made without them.

2. Landlord and tenant remain the necessary parties to an eviction suit. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Kanaklata Das and others v. Naba Kumar Das and others, the Court held that landlord and tenant are the necessary parties to an eviction suit and that a person asserting an independent right, title or interest in the suit property does not, merely on that account, become a necessary or proper party.

3. A rival title claim raised by the tenant’s defence does not enlarge the suit. The Court held: “Even otherwise, the mere fact that a defendant may set up the title of a third person, or may dispute the plaintiffs title by referring to such third person, does not make that third person a necessary or proper party. Otherwise, the scope of an eviction proceeding could be enlarged merely by the nature of the defence raised by the tenant.”

4. An independent title dispute belongs in the petitioner’s own civil suit, not the Small Causes Court. On the petitioner’s own claim, the Court held: “The determination of the petitioners claim would necessarily involve examination of the validity, execution and legal effect of the rival sale deeds, as also the allegations of fraud and misrepresentation. Those questions constitute the subject matter of the petitioners independently instituted civil suit. An application for impleadment cannot be employed as a means of bringing such an independent title dispute before the Small Causes Court or of securing its adjudication, directly or indirectly, in proceedings of limited jurisdiction.” It added, drawing on its own precedent in Manish Bansal vs. Jagdish Prasad Mittal & 7 Others, that “a proceeding concerning the landlord-tenant relationship cannot be enlarged merely because a person claiming an independent title seeks to enter the proceedings and have that claim examined. Such a claim is required to be pursued before the competent forum in appropriately instituted proceedings.”

5. Fear of prejudice from the eviction order is not, by itself, a ground for impleadment. The Court observed: “The petitioners apprehension that an order passed in the S.C.C. suit may prejudice her independent rights also cannot, by itself, furnish a ground for her impleadment. The remedy of impleadment is not available merely to enable a third party to protect an independent title in property when that title is not required to be adjudicated for granting the relief sought in the suit. The petitioners independent rights remain capable of being adjudicated in the civil suit already instituted by her.”

6. Section 23 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887 was not attracted on the facts. The Court noted that this provision — which comes into play where a plaintiff’s entitlement to relief itself depends on a question of title the Small Causes Court is not competent to finally decide — was not triggered merely because a third person asserted an independent title; the petitioner had not shown that respondent no. 1’s claim against the tenant could not be decided without first adjudicating the petitioner’s title.

7. Petition dismissed, with no view expressed on the rival sale deeds. Finding no jurisdictional error or perversity in the orders of the courts below, the Court dismissed the Article 227 petition with no order as to costs. It clarified that it had expressed no opinion on the genuineness or legal effect of either the 19.06.2017 or the 05.09.2017 sale deed, or on the fraud allegations — those questions remain open for determination in the petitioner’s pending Original Suit No. 485 of 2018.

Precedents Relied On

Kanaklata Das and others v. Naba Kumar Das and others, (2018) 2 SCC 352 — the Supreme Court’s holding that landlord and tenant are the necessary parties to an eviction suit, and that a person claiming an independent right, title or interest does not thereby become a necessary or proper party.
Manish Bansal vs. Jagdish Prasad Mittal & 7 Others, 2026:AHC:168155 (Allahabad High Court) — applying the same principle where a revisionist’s claim rested on a rival, unregistered Will as against the plaintiff’s registered Will.
Murti Markandeshwar Ji Maharaj Gopal Ki Bagiya City Jhansi v. Smt. Jyoti Gangwani and another — cited (as noticed in Manish Bansal) for the principle that a landlord-tenant proceeding cannot be enlarged merely because a third party wants a title claim examined within it.

Takeaway

The ruling keeps Small Causes Court eviction suits confined to their statutory scope: the landlord-tenant relationship and the grounds for eviction. A third party who claims a competing title to the tenanted property — even where that claim is based on an earlier sale deed and allegations of fraud against the plaintiff-landlord — is not entitled to impleadment merely because a finding on the landlord’s title could affect them. The correct remedy is the separately instituted civil suit for title (here, Original Suit No. 485 of 2018), not an application under Order I Rule 10 CPC in the summary eviction proceeding. The petitioner’s rights over the property remain to be decided in that pending civil suit, uninfluenced by any observation in this judgment.

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