Supreme Court Sets Aside Kerala HC Will Ruling, Expunges Order Sending Trial Judge for Training

A Division Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Vipul M. Pancholi found the High Court’s two-paragraph reversal of a Will dispute decree wholly unreasoned and its adverse remark against a trial judge impermissible.

The Supreme Court has set aside a judgment of the Kerala High Court that reversed a Civil Court decree in a Will dispute and, in the same breath, directed a Principal Sub Judge to undergo training. The High Court’s entire appellate reasoning occupied two paragraphs and three-and-a-half pages, over a page of which was spent simply extracting the Civil Court’s own reasoning. The Division Bench, in a judgment authored by Justice Sanjay Karol, held that this fell far short of the standards required of a first appellate court under Order 41 Rule 31 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. The direction to send the trial judge for training was separately expunged as contrary to the settled law on adverse remarks. The first appeal has been restored to the Kerala High Court for a fresh hearing.

The Will Dispute and Its Path to the Supreme Court

Thankam, the mother of the plaintiff-appellant Lakshmi and defendant-respondents Gopi and others, died on 27 August 2011. The defendant-respondents relied on a registered Will bearing No. 35 of SRO, Ollukara, dated 22 March 1999, by which Thankam had allegedly bequeathed her property to them. Lakshmi said she had no knowledge of the Will and, after her mother’s death, filed a suit for partition before the Principal Sub Court, Thrissur, as O.S. No. 156 of 2015.

The Civil Court held that the Will had not been proved in accordance with Section 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925. It passed a preliminary decree dividing the suit property into ten shares and directing that Lakshmi was entitled to a 2/10 share.

The defendant-respondents appealed to the Kerala High Court. In RFA No. 298 of 2019, the High Court, by its judgment dated 30 November 2022, set aside the Civil Court decree and dismissed the partition suit. Along with reversing the decree, the High Court termed the Civil Court’s judgment as entirely lacking in comprehension of the controversy and directed that the judge be sent for training.

Aggrieved, Lakshmi filed Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 9510 of 2023 before the Supreme Court. Leave was granted and the matter was converted into a civil appeal.

Two Questions Before the Court

The Supreme Court identified two distinct questions arising from the High Court’s judgment. First, whether the first appeal had been dealt with in accordance with the applicable legal standards. Second, whether the direction to send the trial judge for training was justified.

On the first question, the Court noted that the scope of a first appeal under Section 96 of the CPC is wide. The first appellate court is the final court of fact. It may re-hear the whole case on both facts and law. Order 41 Rule 31 requires the appellate court’s judgment to state points for determination, the decision thereon, reasons for the decision, and, where a decree is reversed, the relief to which the appellant is entitled.

From a survey of its own precedents — including Santosh Hazari v. Purushottam Tiwari, B.V. Nagesh v. H.V. Sreenivasa Murthy, and Laliteshwar Prasad Singh v. S.P. Srivastava, among others — the Court distilled several principles. A first appeal is a valuable right. The judgment must reflect application of mind and support its conclusions with reasons. Where findings are being reversed, the appellate court must give due consideration to the trial court’s appraisal of evidence and, if it reaches a different conclusion, must state reasons for doing so. A cryptic order is not permissible in either a case of agreement or reversal.

On the Duty to Give Reasons

The Court devoted considerable attention to the necessity of reasoned orders. It quoted from Travancore Rayon Ltd. v. Union of India, where a coordinate bench held that when judicial power is exercised, the decision-making process must be disclosed so that an aggrieved party can demonstrate before a superior court that the reasons were erroneous, and so that the obligation to record reasons acts as a deterrent against arbitrary action.

It also drew on Y.V. Chandrachud CJ’s observations in State of Punjab v. Jagdev Singh Talwandi, where a Constitution Bench cautioned against the practice of announcing a final order without a reasoned judgment: without the High Court’s reasoning, the Supreme Court is placed in a predicament and is often forced to stay the order pending delivery of a reasoned judgment.

From Raj Kishore Jha v. State of Bihar, the Court recalled: “non-reasoned conclusions by appellate courts are not appropriate, more so, when views of the lower court are differed from.”

The Court also drew on the comprehensive summary in Kranti Associates (P) Ltd. v. Masood Ahmed Khan, which catalogued the reasons why judicial and quasi-judicial authorities must give reasons: reasons reassure that discretion has been exercised on relevant grounds, they facilitate judicial review by superior courts, they sustain litigants’ faith in the justice delivery system, and they are a component of judicial accountability and transparency.

How the High Court’s Judgment Failed the Test

Applying these principles, the Court found the High Court’s judgment deficient in every material respect. No points for determination were framed; no reasons were given for not framing them; and there was no discussion of how the Civil Court had erred in law by reference to judicial pronouncements or statutory provisions.

All the High Court had done was to extract the Civil Court’s reasoning and then, by a bare observation that the trial court had not understood the actual dispute, sweep that reasoning aside. The Court found this impermissible. “However erroneous the reasoning of the Civil Court may be,” the appellate court is expected to correct course by giving its own reasons for what it believes to be the correct application of law.

The Court also briefly set out what the High Court ought to have engaged with when the issue was proof of a Will. The genuineness of a Will must be proved like any other document, subject to the additional requirements of Sections 59 and 63 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 and Sections 67 and 68 of the Evidence Act, 1872. Key questions include whether the testator signed the Will, whether the testator understood its nature and effect, and whether at least one attesting witness was examined. The Court referenced H. Venkatachala Iyengar v. B.N. Thimmajamma, Meena Pradhan v. Kamla Pradhan, and Parvathi Nairthi (Dead) and Ors. v. Laxmi Nairthy (Dead) Through LRs. and Ors. as the governing precedents. None of these were engaged by the High Court.

The Direction to Send the Trial Judge for Training

The Supreme Court was equally direct about the High Court’s direction that the Principal Sub Judge, Thrissur, be sent to the Kerala Judicial Academy for training. The High Court had also forwarded a copy of its judgment and the impugned judgment to the Director (Academic) of the Academy.

The Court invoked the three-part test from State of U.P. v. Mohd. Naim for cases where adverse remarks are made against persons whose conduct comes before a court: whether the person had an opportunity to explain or defend himself; whether there was evidence on record bearing on that conduct; and whether the adverse remark was necessary for the decision of the case as an integral part thereof.

It also referred to S.K. Viswambaran v. E. Koyakunju, which cautioned that adverse remarks of a serious nature affecting character and professional competence should not be passed lightly. One of the members of the Bench, Justice Sanjay Karol, had himself laid down related principles in State of Punjab v. Shikha Trading Co., where the Court held that such remarks have “the ability to jeopardise and compromise independence of Judges” and may “deter officers and various personnel in carrying out their duty.”

The Court found that the High Court had not applied any of these principles before directing the trial judge to undergo training. The direction was, accordingly, set aside.

Order

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal. The judgment and order dated 30 November 2022 in RFA No. 298 of 2019 was set aside in its entirety. The direction against the Principal Sub Judge of the Principal Sub Court, Thrissur, was specifically expunged. The first appeal was restored to the file of the High Court of Kerala to be heard afresh, with all contentions left open for both parties. There was no order as to costs.