When an Injunction Cannot Be Granted

In one line

Twelve situations in which the Act says an injunction cannot be granted, and they are regularly set as a list, so learn them as one.

In the words a student can write in an exam: section 41 of the Specific Relief Act 1963 provides that an injunction cannot be granted in twelve cases, running from restraining a pending judicial proceeding through to a plaintiff with no personal interest in the matter, and including clause (ha), inserted by the Specific Relief (Amendment) Act 2018 with effect from 1 October 2018, which forbids an injunction that would impede or delay the progress or completion of any infrastructure project.

The section is a bar and not a discretion. Section 36 makes preventive relief discretionary; section 41 says an injunction cannot be granted in these cases at all.

The provision itself

"An injunction cannot be granted

(a) to restrain any person from prosecuting a judicial proceeding pending at the institution of the suit in which the injunction is sought, unless such restraint is necessary to prevent a multiplicity of proceedings;

(b) to restrain any person from instituting or prosecuting any proceeding in a court not subordinate to that from which the injunction is sought;

(c) to restrain any person from applying to any legislative body;

(d) to restrain any person from instituting or prosecuting any proceeding in a criminal matter;

(e) to prevent the breach of a contract the performance of which would not be specifically enforced;

(f) to prevent, on the ground of nuisance, an act of which it is not reasonably clear that it will be a nuisance;

(g) to prevent a continuing breach in which the plaintiff has acquiesced;

(h) when equally efficacious relief can certainly be obtained by any other usual mode of proceeding except in case of breach of trust;

(ha) if it would impede or delay the progress or completion of any infrastructure project or interfere with the continued provision of relevant facility related thereto or services being the subject matter of such project;

(i) when the conduct of the plaintiff or his agents has been such as to disentitle him to the assistance of the court;

(j) when the plaintiff has no personal interest in the matter."

The twelve clauses grouped

The list is easier to hold, and easier to reproduce, in four groups.

Group one: interference with other proceedings, clauses (a) to (d)

(a) A pending judicial proceeding, pending at the institution of the suit in which the injunction is sought. The exception: unless the restraint is necessary to prevent a multiplicity of proceedings. That is the only clause in the group with an exception.

(b) A proceeding in a court NOT SUBORDINATE to the one asked for the injunction. The words are important: a court may restrain a proceeding in a subordinate court. It may not reach sideways or upwards.