Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 – s.100 – Punjab Courts Act, 1918 – s. 41 – Second appeal – Framing of a substantial question of law for entertaining the second appeal – Requirement – On facts, suit for perpetual injunction by the plaintiff against the defendant that he and his brother were owners in possession of the suit land – Defendant’s case rested on the Will executed by the plaintiff’s brother – Trial court passed a decree in favour of the plaintiff holding that the Will was not validly executed – First appellate court set aside the finding of the trial court and passed a decree for joint possession in favour of the defendant – High Court restored the judgment and decree passed by the trial court – In appeal, this Court set aside the judgment passed by the High Court holding that the High Court went beyond the scope and ambit of s. 100 CPC by reappreciating the entire evidence on record and substituting its own opinion for that of the first appellate court – Review petition thereagainst – Correctness:
Held: s. 41 does not mandate framing of a substantial question of law for entertaining the second appeal – Thus, a second appeal u/s. 41 can be entertained by the Punjab and Haryana High Court even without framing a substantial question of law – However, the finding of fact recorded, cannot be interfered with even in terms of s.41 – Judgment under review was wrongly decided holding that the Punjab and Haryana High Court travelled beyond the jurisdiction u/s.
100 CPC by interfering with the finding of fact recorded by the first appellate court without framing a substantial question of law – Since there is an error apparent on the face of the record, the judgment in civil appeal is reviewed and recalled for deciding on merits – First appellate court while setting aside the judgment and decree of the trial court, was required to meet the reasoning given by the trial court in rejecting the Will, which was not been done – Having considered the evidence on record and the findings of the trial court, the first appellate court and the High Court, the first appellate court wrongly set aside the judgment, decree, and findings of the trial court without meeting the findings of the trial court which could not have been done in exercise of power s. 96 CPC – Thus, the High Court rightly set aside the judgment and decree of the first appellate court to restore the judgment and decree of the trial court – On independent examination also, it is found that the findings recorded by trial court are borne out from the evidence on record and are neither perverse nor illegal – Thus, no substance in the civil appeal and is dismissed. [Paras 20, 23, 10, 12, 14, 15, 26, 27]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain (2005) 12 SCC 303 (2005) 10 SCC 243. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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