Raju Naidu v. Chenmouga Sundra
Background
The appellant had agreed to buy a property from a father who later died while a suit by his children (challenging his power to sell it) was pending. A 1986 trial court decree cancelled the sale in the appellant's favour but ordered the children to refund his advance of Rs. 40,000 before recovering possession; an appellate court partly modified this in 1993. Decades later, when the children sought execution and deposited the refund, the appellant argued the execution was filed too late (beyond 12 years from the original 1986 decree) and that the extension of time to deposit money improperly altered the decree.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's rejection of the appellant's objections, applying the doctrine of "merger". Once an appellate court decides an appeal, the trial court's decree merges into the appellate decree, regardless of whether it is confirmed, modified, or reversed. Limitation for execution therefore ran from the 1993 appellate decree (and the subsequent 2001 disposal of review applications), not the 1986 trial decree, so the execution petition was not time-barred. The Court also agreed that Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act (protection for a buyer in part-performance of a sale) did not help the appellant because he had entered into his purchase agreement knowing a suit over the property was already pending (the doctrine of lis pendens).
Lesson Learnt
Once a decree is appealed, the appellate court's decision, not the original trial court decree, becomes the operative order for calculating time limits on enforcement, and a buyer who purchases property with knowledge of pending litigation over it cannot later claim special protection against the outcome of that litigation.