Executing Court Can Correct a Clerical Misdescription of Property Without Sending Parties Back to the Decree Court, Allahabad HC Rules
Allahabad High Court upholds a Bareilly executing court's power to correct a typographical locality error in a 1975 specific-performance decree under Sections 47 and 152 CPC.
A five-decade-old dispute over specific performance of a 1967 agreement to sell a house in Bareilly has finally met its end at the execution stage. Justice Manish Kumar Nigam, sitting singly at Allahabad High Court, dismissed two petitions filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India that challenged orders permitting an executing court to correct the locality name of the suit property from “Mohalla Gulab Nagar” to “Mohalla Siklapur” in the decree. The court held that where the error is plainly clerical, the decree holder has never been in any real dispute about identity of the property, and the defendant himself admitted the correct description at the trial stage, the executing court has full power under Sections 47, 152, and 153 of the Code of Civil Procedure to effect the correction. Decree holders cannot be deprived of the fruits of a decree on account of an accidental typographical slip.
A Specific-Performance Suit Spanning Three Courts and Thirty Years
The original plaintiff, Pooran Lal, filed a suit for specific performance of an agreement to sell dated 31 December 1967 executed by one Maya Devi in respect of a house in Bareilly. The trial court decreed the suit on 29 April 1972. That decree was set aside on appeal and the matter was remanded. After remand, the trial court dismissed the suit on 21 February 1974. The first appellate court, the District Judge, Bareilly, reversed that dismissal in Civil Appeal No. 76 of 1974 by judgment dated 21 April 1975, decreeing the suit with costs and directing the defendants to execute a sale deed of the disputed house within thirty days.
The defendants challenged that decree before the Allahabad High Court in Second Appeal No. 884 of 1975. The High Court granted a conditional stay, but the defendants did not comply with its conditions. The second appeal itself was dismissed on 23 January 2006. With the second appeal gone, the respondents (successors of Pooran Lal) filed an execution application before the Munsiff City, Bareilly, on 2 October 1994, which was registered as Execution Case No. 50 of 1994. Both the original plaintiff and the original defendant died during the pendency of execution and were substituted by their legal representatives, who are the parties before the High Court.
The Locality Discrepancy That Stalled Execution
In the execution proceedings, the respondents filed a draft sale deed—paper No. 69-C—describing the property as situated at Mohalla Siklapur, Bareilly. The petitioners filed objections at paper No. 70-C, challenging the property description and contending that the decree spoke of a house at Mohalla Gulab Nagar, not Siklapur.
On 30 January 2024, the respondents filed application paper No. 91-C stating that the decree had inadvertently recorded the locality as Mohalla Gulab Nagar instead of Mohalla Siklapur due to a mistake by the clerk who prepared the decree. The petitioners opposed this at paper No. 92-C, arguing the respondents were using a correction application to claim a property different from the one decreed.
The executing court first directed the respondents to produce the original or certified copy of the agreement to sell (order dated 8 April 2024). The respondents then filed a fresh application, paper No. 96-C, under Sections 151, 152, and 153 read with Section 47 CPC, praying that in all court records “Gulab Nagar” be replaced with “Siklapur.” The executing court rejected that application on 27 August 2024.
The respondents challenged the rejection in Civil Revision No. 26 of 2024 before the Additional District Judge, Court No. 14, Bareilly. That revision was allowed on 20 December 2024, the order of 27 August 2024 was set aside, and the earlier direction of 8 April 2024 was held to be of no consequence. The petitioners challenged the revisional order before the High Court in Matters Under Article 227 No. 1823 of 2025.
Since no interim stay was granted in that petition, the executing court proceeded. On 3 February 2025, it allowed application paper No. 96-C and also amended the trial court decree accordingly. The petitioners filed a further civil revision before the District Judge, which was dismissed on 15 April 2025. That led to Matters Under Article 227 No. 5440 of 2025. Both petitions arose from the same suit and execution case and were heard together.
What the Plaint and Agreement Actually Said
Justice Nigam examined the pleadings carefully. Paragraph 1 of the plaint in Original Suit No. 96 of 1968 stated that the defendant was the owner of a house situated at Bareilly, Mohalla Siklapur. Relief clause (a) of paragraph 15 also prayed for execution of a sale deed of the disputed house situated at Bareilly, Mohalla Siklapur. However, when the boundaries of the house were set out at the foot of the plaint, the locality was described as Mohalla Gulab Nagar. The body of the plaint and the prayer thus said Siklapur; the boundary schedule said Gulab Nagar.
The court found that in the written statement, the defendants admitted paragraph 1 of the plaint (which identified the property as being at Mohalla Siklapur) and described paragraph 15 as “legal.” The agreement to sell of 1967, filed by the petitioners themselves along with a supplementary affidavit, did not mention any Mohalla by name but gave boundaries of the property. Comparing those boundaries with the boundaries mentioned in the plaint, the court found that three out of four boundaries matched exactly. The fourth showed only a minor variation in the name of a neighbouring property owner.
The draft sale deed in the execution case also described the property as being at Siklapur with the same boundaries as in the plaint. The court concluded that both sides were at all times litigating over the same single property and there was no real ambiguity about its identity.
The Legal Question: Can the Executing Court Correct the Decree?
The petitioners' central argument was that an executing court cannot go behind a decree. If the decree said Gulab Nagar, the court must execute a decree for the Gulab Nagar property. Any correction must come from the court that passed the final decree. Since the second appeal was dismissed by the High Court, only the High Court could amend the decree, relying on the doctrine of merger established in judgments such as M/s Gojer Brothers Ltd. v. Shri Ratan Lal Singh, AIR 1974 SC 1380, and Chandi Prasad & Ors. v. Jagdish Prasad & Ors., (2004) 8 SCC 724.
The respondents countered that the error was a clerical one apparent on the face of the record and contrary to the plaint averments and the District Judge's judgment. Under Section 47 CPC, the executing court has exclusive and wide jurisdiction to determine all questions relating to execution, discharge, or satisfaction of the decree between parties. Sections 151, 152, and 153 CPC additionally permit correction of accidental slips. A decree holder should not be denied the fruits of a decree for an inadvertent typographical error.
Justice Nigam found the petitioners' reliance on the merger doctrine to be misconceived. The cases cited on merger addressed a different question: which court in the appellate hierarchy is competent to amend a decree once it has been confirmed on appeal. None of those cases addressed the separate question of whether an executing court can correct a clerical misdescription of the suit property in the course of deciding questions of execution, discharge, or satisfaction under Section 47 CPC. The court held the merger cases had “no bearing upon the case at hand.”
Similarly, the court distinguished Rakesh Kumar & Ors. v. Ashok Kumar & Anr., 2015(6) ADJ 102, where the defendant had sought amendment only of the execution application without first seeking amendment of the decree itself. In the present case, the respondents had expressly prayed for correction of the decree before the executing court, and that was what the executing court had allowed.
How the Court Reasoned Through Sections 47, 152, and 153 CPC
The court set out the scope of Section 47 CPC at length. The provision confers plenary and exclusive jurisdiction on the executing court to determine all questions relating to execution, discharge, or satisfaction of the decree arising between parties or their representatives. The Supreme Court in Ramchandra Spg. & Wvg. Mills v. Bijli Cotton Mills & Ors., AIR 1967 SC 1344, had affirmed that Section 47 is wide and must be liberally construed to avoid driving parties into fresh litigation. The word “determine” in the section means final disposal; questions of fact and law alike fall within its ambit.
The court acknowledged the settled rule that an executing court cannot go behind the decree, amend it, or substitute a different obligation for the one decreed. But it drew a clear distinction: where the terms of a decree are ambiguous or where there is a misdescription of property, the executing court is entitled to look at the judgment, the pleadings, and other records to resolve that ambiguity. Section 47 is not a bar to that course. A question about whether a particular property is or is not covered by a decree, or whether the description is accurate, is itself a question relating to execution and falls squarely within the section.
The Supreme Court's ruling in Pratibha Singh & Another v. Shanti Devi Prasad & Another, 2003 AIR (SC) 643, was directly on point. There the Supreme Court held that where a suit for an immovable property has been decreed and the property is not definitely identified, the defect is capable of being cured. Resort may be had to Section 152 or Section 47 CPC depending on the facts. An inadvertent error not affecting the merits of the case may be corrected under Section 152 by the court which passed the decree; alternatively, the exact description may be ascertained by the executing court as a question relating to execution under Section 47. Tilak Raj v. Baikunthi Devi (D) By Lrs., AIR 2009 SC 2136, reiterated that clerical mistakes of this nature should be corrected in the interests of justice and that courts should not bind themselves with shackles of technicalities.
Justice Nigam also drew on the Kerala High Court's reasoning in Kassim Beevi v. Meeranchi Mytheen Beevi and Others, 1986 SCC Online Ker 305, where an executing court was held entitled to construe the decree and determine the property to which it related by reference to the pleadings, judgments, and other records, notwithstanding a mismatch in boundary descriptions.
On the facts, the court found the error at the foot of the plaint was plainly typographical. The body of the plaint and the relief clause consistently identified the property as being at Mohalla Siklapur. The defendants admitted that description in the written statement. No objection was taken to the Siklapur description at the trial, in the first appeal, in the second appeal, or in the early stages of execution. The objection surfaced only when the respondents moved to correct the decree in 2024—after nearly thirty years of execution proceedings. The court held the defendant was not misled and could not claim prejudice from a correction that merely aligned the decree with what both parties always understood the suit property to be.
Since the suit had already been finally disposed of, amendment of the plaint under Order VI Rule 17 CPC was not available. The route of Sections 151, 152, and 153 CPC was, however, open to correct an accidental slip. The court further held that the power to correct errors from accidental slips under these sections is not confined to the court that passed the decree; the executing court can exercise that power in the course of determining execution questions, so as to give the decree its true meaning.
Outcome
Justice Manish Kumar Nigam found no perversity or illegality in any of the impugned orders. Both Matters Under Article 227 No. 1823 of 2025 and No. 5440 of 2025 were dismissed without costs on 1 July 2026. The corrections made by the executing court to the decree and to all court records—substituting “Mohalla Siklapur” for “Mohalla Gulab Nagar”—stand confirmed. The execution of the 1975 specific-performance decree may now proceed on the basis of the corrected description.