Supreme Court: Execution court cannot grant unintended reliefs

The Supreme Court has ruled that an execution court cannot go beyond the decree or order to grant reliefs not originally intended or recorded. A bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R. Mahadevan set aside a Himachal Pradesh High Court order in an execution proceeding that had extended benefits beyond what was awarded in the original judgment.

The case involved school lecturers appointed on a contract basis between 1998 and 2000. They sought implementation of a 2013 High Court order that entitled them to the initial pay scale of JBT teachers, as per a 2012 Division Bench judgment in Rakesh Chand. However, in execution, the High Court also granted them admissible allowances meant only for JBT teachers under a different proceeding.

The Supreme Court held the High Court had erred by travelling beyond the scope of the operative judgment. It clarified the respondents were only entitled to the initial pay scale of JBT teachers as revised, not additional allowances. The Court also noted the litigants had remained silent for 12 years about their claim and could not raise it for the first time in execution proceedings.