Supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 not a substitute for unavailed statutory appeal: Rajasthan High Court

Jodhpur: The Rajasthan High Court has held that a party who consciously fails to avail an independent and efficacious statutory remedy of appeal against a trial court’s order cannot later invoke the supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution to indirectly assail an appellate order passed in proceedings initiated by another party.

Justice Farjand Ali, dismissing the writ petition as misconceived, held that the petitioner, having consciously abstained from availing the statutory remedy of appeal against the trial court’s order, could not be permitted to assail the appellate order passed in proceedings instituted by another defendant.

The Court observed:

“It is trite that the supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution is neither appellate nor revisional in nature. The jurisdiction is intended to keep the subordinate Courts within the bounds of their authority and is to be exercised sparingly, only in exceptional situations where the order under challenge suffers from manifest perversity, patent illegality, jurisdictional error or results in palpable miscarriage of justice.”

The writ petition, filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, challenged an order dated May 2, 2023 passed by the Additional District Judge No. 1, Bikaner, which had dismissed an appeal preferred by the State Government against an order dated May 30, 2012 passed by the Additional Civil Judge No. 2, Bikaner. The trial court’s order had directed the parties to maintain status quo over the suit property, a piece of land in Rani Bazar, Bikaner.

Respondent Surendra Kumar Sethia had instituted a civil suit against the State Government, claiming to hold a valid patta over the suit property and seeking to restrain the State from constructing a road over it. During the pendency of the suit, the petitioner, Ayub Sodha, sought impleadment as a defendant under Order I Rule 10 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, contending that the land formed part of a public way and that the injunction sought by the plaintiff would obstruct public convenience and impede administrative functions. His application was allowed.

The trial court initially declined the plaintiff’s prayer for temporary injunction. The plaintiff’s appeal under Order XLIII of the Code was allowed by the appellate court, which remanded the matter for fresh consideration. On remand, the trial court, vide its order dated May 30, 2012, directed the parties to maintain status quo. The State Government’s subsequent appeal against this order was allowed, but the plaintiff’s writ petition before this Court led to a further remand on the ground that an application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act remained undecided. The appellate court thereafter dismissed the State’s appeal on May 2, 2023 — an order neither the State nor the petitioner chose to challenge through the ordinary appellate route.

The Court noted that the petitioner, despite being a party to the suit and to the injunction proceedings, never appealed the trial court’s status quo order, allowing it to attain finality qua him. It held that the mere fact that the State Government had preferred an appeal against the same order did not entitle the petitioner to assail the outcome of proceedings he had not himself initiated, observing that a litigant who consciously abstains from challenging an order before the competent appellate forum cannot, as a matter of course, seek to assail the appellate decision rendered in proceedings initiated by another party.

The Court further observed that the petitioner’s challenge to the trial court’s order was independently barred by the availability of an equally efficacious statutory remedy under Order XLIII of the Code, which he had admittedly failed to avail, and that he could not bypass this statutory mechanism by invoking the supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227.

In its order dated July 7, 2026, finding no jurisdictional error, perversity or manifest illegality in the impugned order, the Court dismissed the writ petition as devoid of merit. It, however, clarified that the dismissal would not preclude the petitioner from pursuing any other remedy available in law, including recourse under Order XXXIX Rule 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure, if the facts and circumstances so warranted.

Title: Ayub Sodha v State of Rajasthan & Ors

Case No.: S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 8382/2023

Citation: [2026:RJ-JP:29746]

Counsel for petitioner: Mr. Manoj Bhandari, Senior Advocate, assisted by Mr. Prateek Surana

Counsel for respondents: Mr. OP Mehta, Mr. Rajeev Purohit, Mr. Harish Gurjar, Mr. Zuber Ahmed, Mr. Tanay Jain