Sanjay Tiwari vs Yugal Kishore Prasad Sao & Ors.
Background
The appellant, as plaintiff, sued the original sole defendant for specific performance of an oral agreement to sell 0.93 acres of land, claiming he had paid the full consideration and taken possession. The defendant contended two other persons (defendant Nos. 2 and 3) held part of the land under a separate, earlier agreement to purchase 50 decimals of it; those two persons were subsequently impleaded and then raised a "counter claim" (not against the plaintiff, but against the original (first) defendant) seeking conveyance of the entire land. The Trial Court allowed this counter claim to proceed, and the High Court upheld that order, reasoning it avoided multiplicity of litigation; the plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that a counter claim under Order 8 Rule 6A of the CPC must be directed against the plaintiff and cannot be maintained by one defendant against a co-defendant, relying on its own precedents (Rohit Singh v. State of Bihar and Rajul Mano Shah v. Kiranbhai Shakrabhai Patel). It found that defendants 2 and 3's claim here was squarely against the first defendant, not the plaintiff, and was therefore not a valid counter claim in this suit. The Court also noted the claim was factually inconsistent (conceding only 43 decimals were meant for the plaintiff while separately claiming the whole 93 decimals) and was raised years after the underlying cause of action, making it time-barred in any event. It allowed the appeal, set aside the counter claim, and left the parties to litigate their respective claims before the Trial Court, declining to grant defendants 2 and 3 liberty to file a fresh separate suit given the delay.
Lesson Learnt
A counter claim in a civil suit is a claim against the plaintiff, not a mechanism for one defendant to fight another defendant within the same suit: a defendant with a grievance against a co-defendant must pursue it through a separate, timely legal proceeding.