In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has held that if a person fails to object to their impleadment at the right time, they cannot later apply to delete themselves from a case. This is because of the principle of res judicata, which stops parties from raising the same issue multiple times in the same case.
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The case involved a man who was added to a suit as the legal heir of his deceased father. He later tried to get his name removed, arguing that under Muslim personal law, he was not eligible since his father died before his grandmother. The trial court had already made a decision to add him after conducting an inquiry under Order XXII of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC). No challenge was made against this order at the time, and it became final.
Later, the man filed an application under Order I Rule 10 of the CPC seeking to delete his name from the case. The trial court and the High Court both rejected this new application. He then appealed to the Supreme Court.
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The bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan upheld the earlier decisions, emphasizing that:
“In the present case, the order for impleadment of the appellant as a legal heir was made by the Trial Court after due inquiry under Order XXII, as also observed by the Trial Court in its order rejecting the application under Order I Rule 10. Evidently, neither any objection was raised by the appellant before the Trial Court nor any revision was preferred subsequently against the said order.”
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The Court further stated:
“Thus, it could be said that the issue as regards the impleadment of the appellant as a legal heir of the original defendant had attained finality between the parties and thus the subsequent application under Order I Rule 10 seeking to get his name deleted from the array of parties could be said to be barred by res judicata.”
The Court explained that even though Order I Rule 10 CPC allows a party to make an application to delete a name at any stage, this does not mean the party can keep raising the same objection repeatedly. Doing so would go against fairness and justice and would leave the case unresolved for too long.
The judgment added:
“Had the appellant taken up the objection at the right stage of the proceedings, it would have been open to the court to look into the said objection under Order XXII Rule 5 and disallow his impleadment as a legal heir of the original defendant. However, having failed to act at the appropriate stage, it was not open to the appellant to subsequently approach the court with an application under Order I Rule 10.”
Case Title: SULTHAN SAID IBRAHIM VERSUS PRAKASAN & ORS.
Appearance:
For Petitioner(s) : Mr. V. Chitambaresh, Sr. Adv. Mr. Harshad V. Hameed, AOR Mr. Dileep Poolakkot, Adv. Mr. C. Govind Venugopal, Adv. Mrs. Ashly Harshad, Adv.
For Respondent(s) : Mr. Mukund P. Unny , AOR
