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Om Prakash Agarwal (Since Deceased) Thr. LRs. & Ors. v. Vishan Dayal Rajpoot & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 970Decided 12 Oct 2018
Civil Appeal Nos. 9051-9052 of 2018
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

A landlord filed a Small Causes Suit for eviction, rent and damages against his tenant before the Civil Judge (Senior Division) at Firozabad, which was later transferred to and decided by the Additional District Judge, who decreed eviction in the landlord's favour. The tenant challenged this decree in a revision before the Allahabad High Court, arguing that after a 2015 Uttar Pradesh amendment raised the pecuniary jurisdiction threshold for Small Cause Courts, the Additional District Judge no longer had jurisdiction to decide the suit. The High Court agreed and set aside the eviction decree purely on this jurisdictional ground, prompting the landlord's heirs to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that even though the Additional District Judge may indeed not have had pecuniary jurisdiction to decide the suit after the 2015 amendment, Section 21 of the Code of Civil Procedure bars a revisional or appellate court from setting aside a decree on a jurisdictional objection (as to place of suing/pecuniary jurisdiction) unless the objection was raised at the earliest opportunity in the trial court and the party shows it caused a failure of justice. Applying its own precedent in Kiran Singh v. Chaman Paswan and R.S.D.V. Finance Company v. Shree Vallabh Glass Works, the Court held that a conflicting High Court single-judge ruling (Tejumal v. Mohd. Sarfraz) did not state the correct law and could not be approved. Since the tenant had not raised the jurisdictional objection at the earliest stage and no prejudice/failure of justice was shown, the High Court erred in interfering with the Additional District Judge's decree purely on the jurisdiction point; the Supreme Court therefore allowed the appeals and set aside the High Court's judgment, restoring the eviction decree, with parties bearing their own costs.

Lesson Learnt

A technical objection that a particular court lacked pecuniary jurisdiction cannot be used to overturn a decree on appeal/revision unless it was raised at the very first opportunity in the trial court and actually caused real prejudice: litigants should raise jurisdictional objections immediately, not save them for a later appeal.

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

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