Can we claim compensation for huge damages caused by malicious civil suit for specific relief?
1) an MOU was signed for sale of land, with condition of executing Agreement within one month, specifying remaining payment by specific dates etc.
2) No Agreement was executed as parties couldn’t agree to terms and conditions.
3) Even before expiry of the period allowed for last payment in the MOU, the purchaser served a legal notice demanding “execution of Agreement together with damages amounting to 85% of the full value of the MOU”, and not “execution of Sale Deed”.
4) Nearly 2½ years after this notice, suit for specific performance of “alleged oral agreement” was filed.
5) Purchaser could not prove oral or written agreement, his capacity & willingness to pay, and default by seller, hence, suit was dismissed on all grounds, after 10½ years.
6) First Appeal, admitted by high court, is pending for listing for final arguments which is expected to take more than a decade!
7) Meanwhile, Seller started to construct a RESORT on part of the land which the plaintiff tried to block not only in court by even outside by :-
a. Objecting to Land Diversion. When failed, appealed against it which succeeded on the ground of pending litigation only. Seller had paid diversion taxes of Rs 35 lacs which went waste. He was finally able to get land diverted after several years when rules were changed to self diversion.
b. Half the development work was done with own funds and bank loan was required for completing the work. After loan sanction and documentation/mortgage, plaintiff (whose lawyer happened to be bank’s legal advisor as well) got disbursement blocked due to pending dispute (suit for specific performance). Since then, no bank loan could be raised because of the pending litigation.
c. Meanwhile, in 10 years, cost of completion has gone up three times which seller will have to bear despite winning the pending litigation.
d. By the time parties are past First Appeal, it would be at least 25 years into the litigation. Blocked completion of RESORT (50% constructed 10 years ago) means loss of profit for all those years, amounting to several times the value of MOU.
e. The plaintiff is repeatedly publishing PUBLIC NOTICES to ensure that property is well known in the market as tainted, successfully preventing any partnership or joint venture or anything about it.
8) While one has right to litigate no matter how baseless his grounds, does he have right to inflict this kind of loss to the defendant except by injunction by court which was denied to him?
9) If not, can we sue him for a claim? What are the probabilities of success?
10) I am aware that criminal laws provides for compensation for malicious prosecution but I am not aware of an equivalent provision/practice/case law in civil law. Can we stretch principle of mesne profit or something else?
