SC: "Provide a summary remedy to a person illegally dispossessed of immovable property"

While adjudicating CIVIL APPEAL No.6071 of 2012, recently The Hon Justice Mr. Ranjan Gogoi of our Apex Court has again ruled with regret over well debated issue of Delay in Justice that" Notwithstanding the clear intent of the legislature to provide a summary remedy to a person illegally dispossessed of immovable property, the defendant has been persistent in its challenge to the decree passed against itIt is indeed sad, if not unfortunate, that what was intended by the legislature to be a summary proceeding to enable a person illegally dispossessed to effect quick recovery of possession of the immovable property has, in the present case, erupted into an over two decades old litigation. The sheer number of pending lis permitted the learned Trial Court to return its findings, after almost a decade, that it is, indeed, the plaintiff who was in possession of the disputed property on the relevant date and was dispossessed therefrom in an illegal manner by the defendant. that the In a civil proceeding, the issues that may arise are required to be decided by balancing the claims and counter- claims of the parties before the Court and on the basis of a preponderance of probabilities.