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Filomena Saldanha (through Power of Attorney Mr. Frazier Saldanha) v. Sunil Kohli (represented by his Power of Attorney, Mr. Naval Bowry)

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 595Decided 29 Apr 2025
Diary No. 10634 of 2024 (C.A. Nos.-005674-005675 - 2025)
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha · Justice Joymalya Bagchi

Background

The dispute arose from the respondent's attempt to get a construction licence for land adjoining the appellant's property, which the appellant opposed on the ground that the construction would block an access pathway. After a series of appeals under the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, the parties reached a settlement recorded by the Bombay High Court (Goa Bench) disposing of the appellant's writ petition, under which the respondent agreed to leave a 3-metre pathway. Later, the respondent filed an application "for speaking to the minutes," asking the High Court to clarify exactly where that 3-metre access should run (along a specific plan), which the High Court allowed: a decision the appellant then unsuccessfully challenged in a review petition.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that the High Court's later order modifying the pathway's exact location, based on a plan the appellant said it never accepted, was passed without giving the appellant a proper opportunity to contest it, and that the High Court had effectively exercised review-like power under the guise of "speaking to the minutes," which is meant only for correcting clerical or typographical errors, not for substantively altering an order's content. The Court set aside both the clarification order and the subsequent order dismissing the review, and restored the "speaking to the minutes" application to the High Court to be decided afresh after hearing both sides, without expressing any opinion on the merits of where the pathway should actually run.

Lesson Learnt

An application to a court to "speak to the minutes" of its own order can only be used to fix clerical slips, not to substantively change what was actually decided. If a court alters the substance of an earlier order this way, without a fair hearing to the affected party, that order can be set aside and the matter sent back for a proper hearing.

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

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