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Venigalla Koteswaramma v. Malempati Suryamba & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 27Decided 19 Jan 2021
Civil Appeal No. 9546 of 2013
Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul · Justice Dinesh Maheshwari · Justice Hrishikesh Roy

Background

The appellant sued for partition of her late step-mother's property among herself and her three siblings. Some contesting relatives claimed the step-mother had, before her death, sold part of the property under an unregistered agreement and separately willed other property to them. The trial court rejected both the alleged sale agreement and the will as fabricated and decreed partition in the plaintiff's favour. On appeal, the Andhra Pradesh High Court upheld the rejection of the will but reversed the trial court on the sale agreement, excluding that property from partition. During the pendency of that very appeal, however, one of the plaintiff's siblings (a respondent in the appeal) died, and no application was ever filed to bring his legal heirs on record.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that because no one substituted the legal representatives of the deceased respondent within the time allowed, the High Court appeal itself had abated against him under Order XXII Rule 4(3) of the Civil Procedure Code. Since the underlying decree in a partition suit is joint and indivisible among all the co-sharers, the appeal could not be allowed to proceed only against the surviving respondents once it had abated against the deceased one, doing so would, in effect, modify a decree that had already become final as against him. Applying this well-established principle, the Court held the entire High Court appeal (which had wrongly held the sale agreement enforceable) was incompetent and had to be dismissed in its entirety; it then also went on to independently re-examine the evidence on the disputed sale agreement and found it, like the will, to be fabricated. The trial court's original decree in the plaintiff's favour was accordingly restored, with costs.

Lesson Learnt

When a party to an appeal dies and no one applies in time to bring the deceased's legal heirs on record, the whole appeal can collapse for a technical but important reason: if the underlying decree cannot be split between parties (such as a joint partition decree), the court cannot let the case continue against the remaining parties alone, because that would effectively alter the dead party's now-final rights without anyone there to represent them.

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

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