The Supreme Court has observed procedural irregularity cannot defeat substantive rights and provided relief to the decree objector, whose objection plea was refused by the High Court on the grounds of misapplication of the provisions in filing his objections towards execution of the decree.

The bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Sanjay Karol sets aside the High Court's order and held that ''Whilst looking at it purely from a procedural point of view, this may have some merit; however, as has been long established, procedural irregularity cannot defeat substantive rights or cannot subvert substantive justice.''

The case concerns a long-standing property dispute involving two main parties, represented by their legal heirs, where the first partition suit was filled by the appellant's predecessors in 1979 claiming half of the property, and the case was ruled in their favor, and the decree granted them possession of half of the land, which was enforced in 1985.

Subsequently, a second partition suit was filed by Dr. Thakar Singh in 1987, claiming a one-fourth share of the same property. It is to be noted that plaintiffs in the first partition suit were defendants in this second partition suit. The suit was granted, with the court acknowledging both Dr. Thakar Singh’s right and Appellant’s share in the property. Further, the dispute was related to the second suit, where the appellant argued that their right established in the first suit conflicts with the one-fourth share granted to the Respondents (of current petition) in the second suit and objected to the same by filing an application under Section 47 and Order XXI Rule 58 and 97 of Civil Procedure Code (CPC).

The High Court refused to allow the appellant's civil revision against the First Appellate Court's order and dismissed the objections, citing procedural grounds.

The Supreme Court, after reviewing the procedural irregularities, ruled that procedural mistakes should not negate substantive rights. The court stated, ''The ground taken by the High Court to dismiss the revision application is that the appellant herein misapplied the provisions in filing his objections before the executing court, inasmuch as the objection petition mentioned both Section 47 as also Order XXI Rule 58 and 97 of the CPC. The High Court found that both these sets of provisions could not be applied together given that the method of assailing the orders passed therein are different and cannot co-exist. Whilst looking at it purely from a procedural point of view, this may have some merit; however, as has been long established, procedural irregularity cannot defeat substantive rights or cannot subvert substantive justice. Since the objector or his father already had a decree in their favour, fruits thereof cannot be denied to them by virtue of the fact that while attempting to protect their rights in a subsequent suit which would have affected their enjoyment of such property, the Sections or Orders under which they sought such protection, were incorrect.''

The court recalled the famous saying ''that procedure is the handmaiden of justice'' and cited Jai Jai Ram Manohar Lal v. National Building Material Supply, Gurgaon that held “5. …. Rules of procedure are intended to be a handmaid to the administration of justice. A party cannot be refused just relief merely because of some mistake, negligence, inadvertence or even infraction of the Rules of procedure.”

'The court remanded the matter to the First Appellate Court to take a decision on the objections of the appellant afresh, on merits, and clarified that the Court has not expressed any view on the facts of the case. The court also considered that since the matter has been doing rounds of various courts for more than two decades, and therefore requested for its expeditious disposal.

Case Title: Joginder singh (dead) THR. LRs versus Dr. Virinderjit Singh Gill (dead) THR. LRs. & ors.

Advocate For Petitioner(s): Mr. Anunnay Mehta, Adv. Mr. Alim Anvar, Adv. Mr. Nishe Rajen Shonker, AOR Mr. Vinayak, Adv.

Advocate For Respondents(s): Mr. A.K. Mohanty, Adv. Mr. Aftab Ali Khan, AOR Mr. Ashutosh Dubey, Adv. Ms. Arunima Dwivedi, AOR