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Hemavathi & Ors. vs. V. Hombegowda & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 848Decided 11 Sept 2023
Civil Appeal Nos. 5780-5781 of 2023
B.V. Nagarathna · Ujjal Bhuyan

Background

The appellants (plaintiffs) had won a partition suit in 2012, getting a 1/4th share each in family property. The defendants' first appeal against this was dismissed for a huge, unexplained delay of 2,945 days. The defendants then filed a Regular Second Appeal before the Karnataka High Court, which allowed it at the admission stage itself, condoning the long delay and sending the case back to the trial court for a fresh trial, without ever framing a "substantial question of law" as Section 100 CPC requires, and without properly hearing all the respondents (the original winning plaintiffs).

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that a second appeal under Section 100 CPC can only be entertained if the High Court frames a substantial question of law: this is a mandatory, non-negotiable threshold, reaffirmed through a long line of precedents (Roop Singh, S.N. Goyal, Umerkhan, Raghavendra Swamy Mutt, etc.) Here, no such question was framed at all, yet the appeal was still allowed, the delay condoned, and the trial court's decree wiped out, all without giving the other side a real hearing. The Court found the High Court's own review order self-contradictory: it admitted no substantial question of law existed, which meant the appeal should have been dismissed outright, not allowed. It set aside both the High Court's judgment and its review order, and remanded the matter to the High Court to be decided afresh, properly, with all parties heard.

Lesson Learnt

A second appeal to a High Court cannot succeed just because a court thinks it is fair to give a losing party another chance. The law requires a genuine, formally framed question of law before such an appeal is even entertained, and skipping that step makes the judgment legally void regardless of the outcome's fairness.

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

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