Vishnu Vardhan @ Vishnu Pradhan vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh

Headnote AI-drafted · Editorially reviewed

The Supreme Court examined a civil appeal and writ petition involving allegations of fraud perpetrated by one of the respondents, Reddy Veeranna, on courts to secure benefits behind the appellant's back. The proceedings also raised interconnected issues of maintainability of the writ petition, jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in the civil appeal, the doctrine of merger, and forum shopping, in the context of land and property disputes in Uttar Pradesh.

The Court extensively reviewed the settled legal position that fraud unravels everything and that a judgment or decree obtained by playing fraud on the court is a nullity and non est in the eyes of law, reaffirming principles from S.P. Chengalvaraya Naidu v. Jagannath and Nidhi Kaim v. State of Madhya Pradesh. It held that the principle of finality of litigation cannot be stretched to the point of shielding fraudulent conduct, and that fraud has to be specifically pleaded and proved in accordance with Order VI Rule 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

The Court analysed multiple procedural and jurisdictional questions arising from the simultaneous pursuit of a civil appeal and review/modification proceedings by the appellant, the intra-court appeal route, and the merger doctrine, alongside the substantive question of whether fraud was established on the facts. The judgment addresses the complex interplay between these issues in detail.

Catchwords: fraud on court nullity of decree fraud unravels everything finality of litigation maintainability of writ petition jurisdiction of Supreme Court doctrine of merger intra-court appeal forum shopping pleading of fraud land dispute Uttar Pradesh