While dismissing an appeal where the Karnataka High Court set aside a judgment rejecting the plaint and restored the suit on the file of the Trial Court, the Supreme Court has held that the suit has to be decided in accordance with law, which would include all the issues apart from the issues on the merits of the case.

The Apex Court was considering an appeal pertaining to a property dispute matter.

The Division Bench of Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice R. Mahadevan held, “We do not think that this is an implication of the judgment of the High Court, nor can such a construction be given to its observations. All that the High Court meant was that the suit is restored on the file of the Trial Court and that it has to be decided in accordance with law, which would include all the above issues apart from the issues on the merits of the case.

Senior Advocate Anand Grover represented the Appellant, while Senior Advocate K. Parameshwar represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

An original suit was filed by the respondents/plaintiffs, seeking a declaration that the Plaintiffs are the absolute owners of the Suit Schedule Property and a direction to the Defendants to hand over the possession of the Suit Schedule Property to the Plaintiffs. During the pendency of the said suit, an application under Order VII Rule 11 (a) and (d) read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) was filed by the defendants. The said application was allowed by the Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge. Consequently, the plaint was rejected.

Being aggrieved, the plaintiffs preferred a Regular First Appeal before the Karnataka High Court. By impugned judgment, the Single Judge allowed the Regular First Appeal and consequently set aside the order passed by the Trial Court, seeking rejection of the plaint. As a result, the suit was restored on the file of the Trial Court. Hence, this appeal was filed before the Apex Court.

Arguments

It was the case of the appellants that the plaint did not disclose any cause of action and the plaint was barred in law inasmuch as the reliefs sought in the plaint were hit by the law of limitation. It was also submitted that the respondents – plaintiffs had earlier filed four suits which were either dismissed or withdrawn and therefore the present suit was not maintainable owing to the application of the principle of res judicata.

The Counsel for the respondents, plaintiffs contended that the application could not have been allowed by the Trial Court at the threshold, thereby resulting in dismissal of the suit. As per the Respondent, the High Court had rightly analyzed the reliefs sought by the respondents-plaintiffs and had reasoned that this was not a case where the plaint could have been rejected. It was argued that the plaint was thus restored on the file of the Trial Court by rejecting the application filed by the defendants seeking rejection of the plaint.

Reasoning

The Bench noted the argument of the counsel of the Respondent defendant that the Trial Court should not construe the observations of the High Court as meaning that the Trial Court should proceed with the case on merits, thereby implying that the issues concerning limitation, res judicata and those arising under Order II Rule 2 of the CPC ought not to be considered at all.

“We do not think that this is an implication of the judgment of the High Court, nor can such a construction be given to its observations”, it stated.

Dismissing the appeal, the Bench held, “It is needless to observe that with the cooperation of both sides, the Trial Court shall endeavour to expedite the disposal of the suit.”

Cause Title: C.M. Meenakshi v. Archbishop of Bangalore (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1363)

Appearance

Appellant: Senior Advocate Anand Grover, AOR Abhishek Manchanda, Keshav M. Datar

Respondent: Senior Advocate K. Parameshwar, A N Venugopala Gowda, Advocates Sanbha Rumnong, Lija Merin John, M.f.philip, AOR Purnima Krishna, Advocates Chandrashekhar A. Chakalabbi, S.K Pandey, Awanish Kumar, Anshul Rai, AOR M/s Dharmaprabhas Law Associates, Advocate T S Shanthi

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Justice BV NagarathnaJustice R Mahadevan

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.