Supreme Court: Doctrine Of Merger Must Be Accompanied By Awareness Of Its Limitations; Not To Be Wielded To Close Avenues For Addressing Genuine Concerns

The Supreme Court emphasized that the application of the Doctrine of Merger, in every case, should be accompanied by an awareness of its limitations and should not be wielded to close avenues for addressing genuine concerns.

The Court emphasized thus in a Civil Appeal filed against the Judgment of the Allahabad High Court, which allowed a Writ Petition.

The three-Judge Bench comprising Justice Surya Kant, Justice Dipankar Datta, and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan remarked, “… the application of the doctrine of merger, in every case, should be accompanied by an awareness of its limitations and should not be wielded to close avenues for addressing genuine concerns. Prioritizing justice and fairness should supersede an absolute insistence on finality. While the latter is commendable, the former is superior. These doctrines, even though are grounded in sound and justifiable public policy arguments, yet, do not limit the powers of the courts in cases where larger public interest is at stake. They have been adapted to accommodate exceptions and qualifications, leaving room for acknowledging special circumstances, particularly in matters of public significance.”

The Bench said that a right of hearing that accompanies every proceeding decided publicly, unless such hearing is barred, cannot be cast aside for no better reason than that of a merger having occurred.

Brief Facts

The primary parties involved in this case were the Appellant-Vishnu Vardhan and the Respondent-Reddy Veeranna. The Appellant had alleged that fraud was played by the Respondent on Courts to reap benefits behind his back. The Appellant assailed the Judgment of the High Court, whereby it allowed a Writ Petition filed by Reddy. Concurrently, with the Civil Appeal, he filed a Writ Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution. He prayed for a diverse relief therein. The dispute was related to the rival claims in respect of ownership of a land situated in Uttar Pradesh, which was acquired by the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) in 2005. The land was jointly purchased in 1997 by Reddy, Vishnu and another person namely T. Sudhakar.

Relying on their joint ownership, the trio initiated various legal proceedings seeking multiple reliefs from time to time, before and after the acquisition of the land by NOIDA. Vishnu alleged that Reddy made several attempts to assert his exclusive ownership in proceedings where Vishnu and Sudhakar were not joined as parties. He further alleged that in one such proceeding, Reddy succeeded and the High Court by the impugned Order, declared him the sole owner. Being aggrieved by the conduct of Reddy which according to Vishnu was fraudulent, and the impugned Judgment, Vishnu sought relief from the Apex Court. Also, there was a Petition for review and an Application for recall both at the instance of Vishnu seeking review of the 2022 Judgment in C.A. No. 3636/2022 and seeking recall of an Order in MA 255/2023 in Civil Appeal 3636/2022.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court after hearing the contentions of the counsel, observed, “In our view, there is no prima facie infringement of Vishnu’s Fundamental Rights including, inter alia, the right to have access to an effective legal remedy, since all the available options for relief are being sought to be explored by him. Accordingly, we uphold the first argument advanced by Reddy that the writ petition did not disclose violation of any of the Fundamental Rights and, hence, is not maintainable.”

The Court noted that although the doctrine of merger has its roots in common law principles, it has firmly been integrated within the contours of Indian jurisprudence.

“Having discussed the law on the doctrine of merger, we must acknowledge that with rules come with exceptions. The doctrine of merger does not apply universally or without limit. There are certain decisions of this Court which, in the exceptional situations before it, declined to apply the doctrine of merger. It would be appropriate to notice the same now”, it added.

The Court further enunciated that when an Appeal is limited to a specific part of the Judgment and Order of the first-instance Court, the merger occurs only to that extent, leaving the rest intact and available for future consideration.

“The extent of merger is determined by the subject matter of the appeal. The merger can only operate on issues which were the subject-matter of the appellate court’s judgment and order and cannot have any application to issues which are not being taken on appeal by either party or which had not been touched upon by the appellate court”, it said.

The Court also reiterated that a party to the proceedings affected by a Judgment/Order may Appeal as of right within the prescribed period of limitation, if such a right is created by a statute, however, insofar as a stranger, i.e., a non-party to the proceedings is concerned, if an Appeal from the Judgment/Order is allowed, he too can Appeal provided a leave/permission is granted by the Appellate Court.

“Law is well-settled that much is not required to obtain leave/permission. If a stranger, dissatisfied with a judgment/order, can make out even a prima facie case that he, being bound by such judgment/order, is aggrieved by it or prejudicially affected by it, there could arise little reason for declining leave/permission”, it added.

Court’s Important Observations

The Court was of the view that the Doctrine of Merger may not have any application in all cases of cognate Civil Appeals being carried from the same Order, if it is convincingly demonstrated that (i) his right of Appeal should not be foreclosed because of the very rare or special circumstance(s) that is/are projected before the Court; or (ii) his Appeal raises an issue of seminal public importance, which was not available to be raised by the Appellant who approached the Court in its appellate jurisdiction in the earlier round of litigation, and also that such issue in the greater public interest requires a resolution by the Court; or (iii) since an act of Court ought to prejudice none, refusal to interfere by the Court would invariably result in offending the principle of actus curiae neminem gravabit; or (iv) the earlier appellate decision is vitiated because of fraud having been practiced on the Court by a party in whose favour the ruling had been made, as in this case; or (v) that public interest would be put to extreme jeopardy by reason of irretrievable consequences ensuing, if interference which is otherwise found to be warranted in law were declined solely based on the Doctrine of Merger.

“Having noted that fraud is an exception to the doctrine of merger and considering that the impugned order of the High Court and the decision of this Court in Reddy Veerana (supra) have been found by us to be vitiated by fraud, the argument by learned senior counsel for Reddy as regards the non maintainability of the present proceedings based on the merger doctrine is of no significance”, it remarked.

Furthermore, the Court elucidated that no act of Court should harm a party being the foremost principle in the mind of any Court, it would be a travesty of justice if such Court, feeling bound by the shackles of technicalities, were to decline interference to set things right despite arriving at a definitive conclusion of being tricked by fraud; and, it is a fallacy to urge such a contention before the Supreme Court, which has vast and pervasive powers to remedy any wrong that might have occasioned to a litigant owing to sharp and fraudulent practices of another litigant, more particularly in a case of proven fraud.

“We, therefore, find it necessary to allow the appeal by requiring the Registry to notify the additional quantum of court fees payable by Vishnu, which has not been notified to him, as well as grant liberty to Vishnu to cure the other technical defects within a fortnight from this date. It is only upon curing of such defects that the petition for review shall be treated to be in order”, it held.

Conclusion

Considering the long-standing set of disputes between the trio, the Court said that it would have been appropriate if the High Court was urged to implead those third parties whose rights could specifically be affected.

“However, the High Court proceeded unaware of the fact that there was one other party (read Vishnu) who was claiming joint ownership and had even instituted a suit to have the decree obtained by Reddy declared void. Now, in view of the order that we propose to pass, we hope and trust that all the necessary parties would be brought on record and extended the opportunity to place their respective versions to facilitate an appropriate decision to be rendered to terminate the present lis by a just and proper redetermination of the compensation payable to the rightful claimant(s)”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Appeal, set aside the High Court’s Judgment, and issued necessary directions.

Cause Title- Vishnu Vardhan @ Vishnu Pradhan v. The State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 884)

Appearance:

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Senior AAG Garima Prashad, Senior Advocates Dushyant Dave, Niranjan Reddy, Nikhil Goel, Shyam Divan, Devadatt Kamath, Pinaki Mishra, Shoaib Alam, AORs Aniruddha Deshmukh, Vipin Nair, Shashank Shekhar Singh, Soayib Qureshi, Ashutosh Ghade, Abhinav Agrawal, Shalini Kaul, Advocates Sughosh Subramanyam, Udayaditya Banerjee, Sanskruti Samal, Mohd Aman Alam, M.B. Ramya, Aditya Narendranath, Madhavi Yadav, Yashvardhan Singh, Abhinav Singh, Sameer Jain, Suvigya Awasthy, Vivek Joshi, Deepesh Raj, Ruby Singh Ahuja, Pravin Bahadur, Amit, Kanika Gomber, Akanksha Thapa, Uzma Sheikh, Tribhuvan Narain Singh, and Chaman Choudhary.

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