Allahabad HC: Rejecting a Section 10 CPC Stay Plea in a Small Cause Court Suit Is Not a “Case Decided” Under Section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act

Justice Yogendra Kumar Srivastava held that an order merely permitting a suit to continue does not constitute a “case decided” revisable under Section 25, while clarifying the Small Cause Court’s adjudicatory obligations on material pleas.

The Allahabad High Court has dismissed an Article 227 petition challenging two interlocutory orders passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Court No. 2, Moradabad in a Small Cause Court eviction suit. Justice Yogendra Kumar Srivastava, sitting singly, resolved a threshold question that had divided the parties: whether the trial court’s refusal to stay its own proceedings under Section 10 read with Section 151 CPC amounted to a “case decided” within Section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887, making the Article 227 petition non-maintainable. The court held it did not, went on to examine the merits, and ultimately found no jurisdictional error in either impugned order. The judgment also clarifies the interplay between the formal exclusion of issue-framing under Order XIV CPC and the Small Cause Court’s continuing duty to adjudicate every material controversy.

The Eviction Suit and the Wakf Defence

The respondent-plaintiffs, Javed Anwar and others, instituted J.S.C.C. Suit No. 25 of 2016 before the Small Cause Court, Moradabad, seeking eviction of the petitioners—Smt Raisi Begum and two others—from the disputed premises and recovery of arrears of rent at Rs. 2,000 per month from April 2007. The plaintiffs asserted ownership and landlordship through sale deeds dated 03.01.1992 and 07.01.1992, stated to have been executed by the then Mutawalli, Shamshul Hasan. A termination notice dated 25.07.2016 under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act was also served.

The petitioners filed a written statement denying the very existence of a landlord-tenant relationship with the respondents. Their defence rested on three planks. First, the disputed property is Wakf property, and their tenancy is under the Wakf and its Managing Committee, not under the respondents. Second, the sale deeds of 1992 are void and incapable of conferring title because neither a Mutawalli nor a beneficiary possesses proprietary authority to alienate Wakf property, and the permission required under Section 49-A of the U.P. Muslim Wakf Act, 1960 was never obtained. Third, jurisdiction over disputes concerning Wakf property lies with the Wakf Tribunal under Sections 83 and 85 of the Wakf Act, 1995, not with the Court of Small Causes.

Seven issues were framed by the trial court on 21.05.2019. The petitioners thereafter filed Applications Nos. 159-Ga and 164-Ga seeking formulation of sixteen additional issues covering, among other things, the alleged Wakf character of the property, the tenancy under the Wakf or its Managing Committee, the jurisdiction of the Small Cause Court, the validity and service of the termination notice, and the validity and effect of the 1992 sale deeds. These applications were rejected by order dated 09.10.2025.

Separately, the petitioners filed Application No. 176-Ga under Section 10 read with Section 151 CPC seeking a stay of the suit pending the outcome of Second Appeal No. 306 of 2018 before the High Court, which arises from earlier litigation concerning the validity and cancellation of the very same 1992 sale deeds. That application was rejected by order dated 07.03.2026 on the ground that the subject matter of the two proceedings was distinct.

The Maintainability Dispute: Is the Section 10 Rejection a “Case Decided”?

The respondents raised a preliminary objection. They argued that the order dated 07.03.2026, having conclusively rejected a statutory stay under Section 10 CPC, constituted a “case decided” within Section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887. If so, the petitioners’ remedy was a revision under Section 25, and the Article 227 petition was not maintainable. Both sides agreed the objection could be considered alongside the merits.

Justice Srivastava examined Section 25, which confers revisional jurisdiction upon the High Court over decrees or orders in any “case decided” by a Court of Small Causes where such court has exercised or failed to exercise jurisdiction, or has acted illegally or with material irregularity. He held that the expression “case decided” cannot be satisfied merely because the court has passed an order upon a separately numbered application. The substance of the determination, not its form, must govern.

The court distinguished the Full Bench decision in Ramrichpal Singh v. Dayanand Sarup (AIR 1955 All 309), which had held that an order under Section 10 CPC could constitute a “case decided” for purposes of Section 115 CPC. Justice Srivastava accepted that the principle in Ramrichpal Singh demonstrated that Section 10 orders are not categorically excluded from the concept of a “case decided”. However, he held that the principle cannot be transplanted mechanically into Section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, which forms part of a special statutory scheme deliberately designed to provide an expeditious and simplified procedure for a specified class of suits.

The reasoning turns on what the rejected stay order actually decided. It did not adjudicate the validity of the 1992 sale deeds. It did not determine whether the property is Wakf property. It did not conclusively settle the landlord-tenant relationship, the liability to pay rent, the alleged default, or the entitlement to eviction. All those questions remained open for adjudication in the suit. The order’s only legal consequence was to permit the Small Cause Court to continue with the trial. An order of that character, the court held, does not possess the adjudicatory quality which the expression “case decided” requires in the context of Section 25.

The court also warned against the systemic consequence of a contrary reading. If every interlocutory determination in a Small Cause Court suit were revisable under Section 25, the proceedings could be fragmented by successive challenges to orders on adjournments, discovery, reception of evidence, interrogatories, and procedural directions, defeating the very legislative purpose behind the special procedure. The court also observed that treating the form of an application as determinative would create anomalies: the same objection raised at final adjudication would be part of the judgment, whereas the same objection raised earlier through a separate application would generate an independently revisable order. Such piecemeal adjudication is inconsistent with the scheme of Small Cause Court proceedings.

The preliminary objection was accordingly rejected, and the Article 227 petition was held maintainable.

Issue-Framing in Small Cause Courts: Procedure Excluded, Adjudication Not

Before examining the merits of either impugned order, Justice Srivastava addressed a foundational procedural question: the scope of a Small Cause Court’s obligation to identify and determine controversies, given that Order L Rule 1 CPC expressly excludes the application of Order XIV CPC (settlement and framing of issues) to Courts constituted under the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act.

The court held that the exclusion is of the formal procedure, not of the adjudicatory obligation. A Court of Small Causes is not required to frame issues in the manner of a regular civil court, but it must ascertain from the pleadings the real controversies between the parties, identify the material points requiring determination, and record findings on those points. This obligation is reflected in Order XX Rule 4(1) CPC, which requires even a Small Cause Court judgment to contain the “points for determination” and the decision thereon.

Justice Srivastava relied on this Court’s earlier decision in Raju Kashyap and 2 Others v. Smt. Archana Jain (2026:AHC:164125), which had examined Section 17 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, Order L Rule 1(a)(iii), and Order XX Rule 4(1) CPC in the context of a res judicata plea, and had held that the exclusion of Order XIV does not denude the Small Cause Court of its obligation to formulate and decide the real controversies. He also noted the Supreme Court’s recognition in Rameshwar Dayal v. Banda (Dead) through LRs (1993) 1 SCC 531 that the “points for determination” under Order XX Rule 4(1) are, in substance, the matters which would otherwise arise as issues under Order XIV.

The practical consequence is that a defendant’s plea, if material to the adjudication of the suit, cannot be silently bypassed merely because no formal issue has been separately framed in respect of it. Conversely, a defendant has no vested right to insist that every proposition in the defence be converted into a separately numbered issue.

The Sixteen Additional Issues: No Jurisdictional Error in Refusal, But a Caveat

Against that backdrop, the court examined the order dated 09.10.2025 rejecting the petitioners’ applications for sixteen additional issues. The trial court had noted this Court’s earlier order dated 28.04.2022 in S.C.C. Revision No. 56 of 2022, which had left the trial court at liberty to frame additional issues or points of determination “if required” for proper adjudication. The trial court had also noted the age of the suit—pending since 2016—and the incomplete recording of the plaintiff’s evidence.

Justice Srivastava held that the trial court had essentially proceeded on the correct understanding of the special procedure. The rejection of sixteen proposed additional issues was not, by itself, a failure to exercise jurisdiction, given that seven issues were already on record and the earlier High Court order had expressly conditioned further framing on necessity. The phrase “if required” in the 2022 order did not confer an unconditional entitlement on the petitioners to have every proposed issue framed.

However, the court appended a clear direction. The rejection of the applications cannot be taken to mean that the controversies specifically raised by the petitioners—the Wakf character of the property, the asserted tenancy under the Wakf or its Managing Committee, the existence of the landlord-tenant relationship, and the jurisdiction of the Small Cause Court—stand excluded from consideration. If any such controversy arises from the pleadings and is found material to the relief claimed, it must be considered and decided at the stage of final adjudication, whether or not it is separately numbered as an issue.

The court also addressed the plea relating to the 1992 sale deeds. The validity of those instruments is itself the subject matter of Second Appeal No. 306 of 2018. For purposes of the challenge to the issue-framing order, however, the existence of that controversy did not require the trial court to frame a separate formal issue in precisely the language proposed. The extent to which the sale deeds controversy is material to the relief claimed in the eviction suit is a matter for the trial court to assess at the appropriate stage.

Section 10 and Section 151 CPC: Pendency of the Second Appeal Insufficient

The petitioners’ argument for staying the suit rested on a straightforward factual connection: the respondents’ landlordship in the eviction suit is founded on the 1992 sale deeds, and the validity of those very deeds is pending before the High Court in Second Appeal No. 306 of 2018. If the deeds are ultimately found void, the foundation of the respondents’ claim collapses, and continuation of the eviction proceedings risks producing a conflicting or inconsistent finding.

Justice Srivastava accepted that the connection was not “wholly without substance in the abstract”, but held that the statutory test under Section 10 CPC is more demanding. The provision requires that the matter directly and substantially in issue in the subsequently instituted suit be also directly and substantially in issue in the previously instituted suit. A factual or legal connection between two proceedings, or the possibility that the decision in one may have a bearing on the other, is not enough.

The eviction suit before the Small Cause Court is concerned with the existence of a landlord-tenant relationship and the entitlement to eviction and arrears. The litigation in Second Appeal No. 306 of 2018 concerns the validity and cancellation of the 1992 sale deeds. The two proceedings have a factual foundation in common, but the matters directly and substantially in issue in each are not identical. The Small Cause Court is not adjudicating title in the manner of a court deciding a declaration or cancellation suit; its immediate task is the narrower one of determining whether the relationship of landlord and tenant exists and whether the plaintiff is entitled to the reliefs claimed within its jurisdiction.

The court also noted that Second Appeal No. 306 of 2018 had not been admitted and no interim order had been passed in it. The order dated 22.11.2022 recorded in that appeal merely set out contentions and did not constitute any adjudication. Mere pendency of an unadmitted second appeal does not establish that the matter directly and substantially in issue in the present suit awaits determination in the appeal.

On the invocation of Section 151 CPC, the court held that inherent jurisdiction cannot be employed to circumvent the substantive requirements of Section 10. Where the statutory conditions are not satisfied, a generalised apprehension of overlapping findings does not furnish a sufficient basis for an indefinite stay.

The court further observed that the respondents had pointed to proceedings before the U.P. Sunni Central Wakf Board in which its earlier orders were withdrawn, leading to deletion of the disputed property from the Wakf register. The Wakf Tribunal had taken note of this development by order dated 27.01.2015, which was stated to have never been challenged. These circumstances were a relevant consideration while assessing whether continuation of the eviction suit would necessarily require determination of the same matter pending in the second appeal. The trial court had taken all of these into account. Its conclusion that the second appeal did not furnish sufficient ground for a stay was not perverse, arbitrary, or jurisdictionally flawed.

Order

The petition was dismissed. The trial court was directed to proceed with J.S.C.C. Suit No. 25 of 2016 in accordance with law and to bring the proceedings to a conclusion expeditiously, given that the suit has remained pending since 2016 and is subject to directions for expeditious disposal. The court clarified that the dismissal does not prejudice the rights or contentions of either party in the pending suit, save to the extent of the legal principles expressly determined in the judgment. At the stage of final adjudication, the trial court must identify all material points arising from the pleadings and record its findings on every such point necessary for determining the rights of the parties and the reliefs claimed, regardless of whether a separate formal issue has been framed.