The Delhi High Court has clarified that the legal principle of Constructive Res Judicata, although derived from the Civil Procedure Code (CPC), applies even to writ proceedings. A division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela made this observation while addressing a plea challenging certain guidelines.
“The principle of res judicata though appears to be technical or artificial prescribed by the Code of Civil Procedure, however, the said principle is founded on considerations of public policy as well,” the Court observed.
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The Court explained that Constructive Res Judicata prevents repeated litigation by disallowing parties from raising new grounds in subsequent proceedings if they failed to raise them in earlier ones. This principle stems from Order II Rule 2 and Section 11 of the CPC, which bar repeated claims on the same issue between the same parties.
Explanation IV under Section 11 of CPC states that if a matter might or ought to have been raised in a previous case, it is considered to have already been in issue.
Similarly, Order II Rule 2 bars plaintiffs from initiating a new suit on a part of a claim that was omitted or relinquished earlier.
However, Section 141 of the CPC states that these rules do not apply to proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution (writ petitions). Despite this, the Delhi High Court held that public policy and finality in litigation justify applying Constructive Res Judicata to writs.
“As finality of decisions is an important facet of it, holding otherwise would be against public policy,” the Court emphasized.
The Court relied on two key Supreme Court rulings:
- Devilal Modi v. Sales Tax Officer, Ratlam & Others (1964): The apex court held that Res Judicata applies to writ proceedings as well.
- State of U.P. v. Nawab Hussain (1977): The Court stated that allowing a party to bring separate cases on different causes of action arising from the same facts would increase litigation and abuse the legal process.
In this specific case, the Petitioner had challenged Clause 3.3 of the Guidelines for Grant of Reward to Informers and Government Servants, 2015. The guidelines provide rewards to individuals who help in detecting tax or duty evasion under laws like the Customs Act, Central Excise Act, NDPS Act, and Finance Act.
Clause 3.3 gives the competent authority discretion to decide rewards on a case-by-case basis. The Petitioner claimed dissatisfaction with the quantum of reward and had previously filed litigation. However, they had not challenged Clause 3.3 in those earlier proceedings.
The High Court dismissed the current writ petition, noting that the Petitioner should have raised this issue earlier. Since they failed to do so, they cannot reopen the matter now.
“Challenge to Clause 3.3 of the Guidelines, having been omitted by the petitioner in earlier round of litigation, in our opinion, by applying the principle of Constructive Res Judicata, the instant writ petition… will not be maintainable,” the Court said.
It further added:
“If such a challenge is permitted, there will be no end to the litigation between the petitioner and the respondents. The principle of Constructive Res Judicata has evolved as a matter of public policy to prevent multiplicity of litigations on an issue.”
As a result, the writ petition was dismissed, reaffirming that once an issue could have been raised earlier, it cannot be raised later merely by filing a fresh petition.
Appearance: Mr. Manish Raghav and Mr. Shivaansh Dixit, Advocates for Petitioner; Mr. Chetan Sharma, ASG with Mr. Rakesh Kumar, CGSC, Mr. Amit Gupta, Mr. Saurabh Tripathi, Mr. Shubham Sharma and Ms. Urja Pandey, Advocates for UOI.
Case title: SC Gupta v. Union of India & Anr.
Case no.: W.P.(C) 4462/2025
