Court case(2010) 3 SCC 385

The respondent claimed to be in possession of residential premises, part of which were occupied through a person allowed by her to stay there. The appellants, asserting their own rights in the property, entered and took possession without any order of a court. Within six months she filed a suit under s. 6 of the Specific Relief Act 1963 for recovery of possession. The appellants contended that she had not been in actual physical possession and so could not maintain the summary suit.

The Supreme Court upheld the decree for possession. Section 6 is a summary remedy whose object is to discourage people from taking the law into their own hands. The only questions in such a suit are whether the plaintiff was in possession, whether he was dispossessed without his consent otherwise than in due course of law, and whether the suit was filed within six months. Possession need not be personal and physical: a person who possesses through a tenant, licensee or caretaker is in possession, and the dispossession of that person is his dispossession. Title is irrelevant and is left to a regular suit under s. 6(4).