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C Prabhakar Rao and Anr v. Sama Mahipal Reddy and Anr

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 311Decided 4 Mar 2025
Civil Appeal No. 3548 of 2025 (arising out of SLP (C) No. 29261 of 2024)
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha · Justice Manoj Misra

Background

The appellants had obtained an ex-parte decree for specific performance of a property sale agreement after the respondents failed to contest the suit diligently. The respondents later filed two separate applications (one to condone their 939-day delay in challenging the ex-parte decree, and another to actually set aside that decree) both of which the trial court dismissed. The respondents then filed a revision petition in the Telangana High Court against only the delay-condonation order, not against the dismissal of the application to set aside the decree.

Decision Breakdown

The High Court had gone further than what was asked, condoning the delay and also setting aside the ex-parte decree and restoring the suit, even though no revision had been filed against the order refusing to set aside the decree. The Supreme Court held this was a jurisdictional error: condoning delay and setting aside a decree are distinct legal questions requiring independent consideration, and a court cannot grant relief on an issue that was never actually placed before it in the revision. The Court left the delay-condonation intact but set aside the portion restoring the suit, and directed the trial court to separately decide, on its own merits, the pending application to set aside the ex-parte decree.

Lesson Learnt

A court's power in a revision or appeal is limited to the specific order actually under challenge, even if related issues arise from the same case, a court cannot decide something that was never brought before it through proper procedure.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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