Cholasseri Hamza and Others vs T.V. Udayaraj

T.B. Radhakrishnan, J.—1. This interlocutory application is filed invoking Sections 24 and 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure by the respondents who are defendants in OS No. 290 of 1994 of the Sub Court, Manjeri. That suit, which was valued at Rs. 2,10,874/-, was partly decreed. The plaintiffs appealed it before the High Court. The defendants have filed an appeal before the District Court, Manjeri as AS No. 110 of 2005. The request is that the said appeal be withdrawn to this Court in exercise of powers under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure. When two appeals arise from the same suit, it is obviously a grave error, and an apparent deficit in legal advice, that one of the appeals was instituted before the District Court because the value of the subject-matter of the suit from which both the appeals arise; which is the decisive factor; is beyond Rs. 2,00,000/- and, therefore, any appeal could have been entertained only by the High Court even if the amount in dispute in any of the appeals arising from the decree in that suit is much below the outer limit of the pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Court.

Repeated situations as afore-noted would have prompted the Parliament to amend Section 24 of the CPC in 1976, to include sub-section 5 therein, resultantly providing that a suit or proceeding may be transferred, under Section 24 of CPC from a Court which has no jurisdiction to try. This position obviously indicates that instead of waiting for the process of returning the plaint or appeal for representing it before the appropriate Court, the Superior Court can withdraw or transfer such suits or proceedings. This power to transfer includes the power to transfer appeals as well.

For the aforesaid reasons, this IA is allowed and AS No. 110 of 2005 pending in District Court, Manjeri is withdrawn to this Court. The office will, on receipt of the records, appropriately re-number it and list it along with this appeal showing the names of the advocates who had appeared in that appeal before the District Court.