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Judgment
C.S.Dias, J.
This transfer petition is filed under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (for brevity, “CPC”), seeking transfer of O.S. No. 383 of 2024 from the Court of the Munsiff, Kottayam, to the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Kottayam, for joint trial with O.S. Nos. 144 of 2023 and 27 of 2025, which are pending before the latter court.
Section 24 of the CPC vests concurrent jurisdiction in this Court and the District Court to withdraw any suit, appeal or other proceeding pending before a court subordinate to them and to transfer it for trial or disposal to another court subordinate to them and competent to try or dispose of the proceedings. The existence of concurrent jurisdiction, however, does not by itself enable a litigant to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court in the first instance, disregarding the established judicial hierarchy.
Both the Court of the Munsiff, Kottayam, and the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Kottayam, are subordinate to this Court as well as to the District Court, Kottayam. The District Court is, therefore, competent to consider the relief sought for in this transfer petition. The question is not whether this Court has jurisdiction to entertain the transfer petition, but whether it must exercise the power at the first instance when the Code of Civil Procedure confers on the District Court, though subordinate to this Court, the same power to consider a petition for transfer of proceedings.
Section 15 of the CPC mandates that every suit shall be instituted in the court of the lowest grade competent to try it. Though the provision directly governs the institution of suits, it embodies a broader procedural policy that proceedings should ordinarily be dealt with at the appropriate level in the hierarchy, and the jurisdiction of a higher court may not be invoked when the competent subordinate court can suitably consider the same relief. This principle promotes orderly administration of justice, respects the institutional role of the each Court to avoid concentration of matters before the higher court. In my view, by analogy, the same principle of judicial propriety and the hierarchy of courts applies when a party seeks transfer under Section 24 of the CPC. The provision confers power; it does not require approaching the High Court in preference to the District Court when both have concurrent jurisdiction, unless exceptional circumstances are carved out.
In Jaikaran Singh and Others v. Balakram and Others [2020 SCC OnLine All 632], the Allahabad High Court, while considering a matter of similar nature, underscored the importance of maintaining the judicial hierarchy and held as follows:
“11.However, the parties should approach the District Court first and thereafter the High Court as judicial property demand that judicial hierarchy be maintained. It was, therefore, always in the interest of justice that the powers of the District Court be invoked initially and, thereafter, those of the High Court. Certainly an order passed on a Transfer Application does not bring to an end the litigation between the parties and, therefore, as has been held in Asrumati Debi v. Kumar Rupendra Deb Raikot (supra) as an order passed under Section 24 of the C.P.C. is not a judgement the High court cannot exercise its supervisory jurisdiction. Thus, once when the doors of the District Court have been knocked the filing of a Transfer Application before the High Court is neither prohibited nor excluded. A bare reading of Section 24 of the C.P.C. would clarify the point in issue and, therefore, Section 24 of the C.P.C. is being reproduced here as under:”
The same institutional principle finds support in Mohammed Rasal C. v. State of Kerala [2025 KHC Online 7493]. In the said case, notwithstanding the absence of an analogous provision in Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, to Section 15 CPC, while considering the concurrent jurisdiction of the High Court and the Court of Session in applications for pre-arrest bail, the Hon’ble Supreme Court emphasised that the existence of concurrent jurisdiction does not ordinarily justify bypassing the forum that should be approached first. The Court observed as follows:
“6.We find that in this case, the petitioners had approached the High Court directly for pre - arrest bail under S.482 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023(for short, 'BNSS'), without first approaching the Sessions Court for the said relief. We are of the opinion that though the concurrent jurisdiction is conferred upon the Sessions Court and the High Court to entertain a prayer for pre - arrest bail under S.482 of the BNSS (formerly, S.438 CrPC), the hierarchy of Courts demands that no person seeking such remedy should be encouraged or allowed to directly approach the High Court for exercising jurisdiction under S.482 of the BNSS (formerly, S.438 CrPC) by bypassing the jurisdiction of the concerned Sessions Court. *** *** ***
8.We further feel that if the practice of entertaining the applications for pre – arrest bail directly in the High Court is encouraged, and the parties concerned are not relegated to first approach the Sessions Court concerned, the High Court would be flooded with a spate of pre - arrest bail applications thereby creating a chaotic situation. We say so, because if the parties are required to approach the Sessions Court concerned for seeking remedy of pre - arrest bail, there is a strong probability that significant number of applications would be allowed at that level only there by acting as a filtration process before the process reaches the High Court.”
In the present case, although this Court has jurisdiction under Section 24 of the CPC to order the withdrawal and transfer of the aforementioned suit, as there are no exceptional circumstances made out by the petitioners to directly approach this Court, I am not persuaded that the petitioners should be permitted to invoke the power of this Court in the first instance without first approaching the District Court, which is equally competent to consider the transfer petition. Requiring the petitioners to approach the District Court first gives effect to the principle of judicial hierarchy and preserves the orderly exercise of concurrent jurisdiction, without foreclosing their substantive request for transfer.
Accordingly, this transfer petition is dismissed, but by reserving the right of the petitioners to file a fresh transfer petition on the same cause of action before the District Court, Kottayam. Needless to mention that this Court has not expressed anything on the merits of the petitioners' prayer for transfer of the proceedings.