HORIL Vs. KESHAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) This appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated November 11, 2003 passed by the Allahabad High Court by which it allowed the writ petition filed by respondent nos. 1 and 2, set aside the order passed by the District Judge,affirming the order of the Munsif, and held that the suit filed by the appellant was not maintainable being barred in terms of Order XXIII Rule 3-A of the Code of Civil Procedure.

(3.) The appellant filed a suit (No. 43 of 1980) in the court of Munsif, Karwi (Banda) seeking a declaration that the decree passed by the Assistant Collector, Class-I, in a suit under sections 176, 178 and 182 of the U.P. Zamindari Abolition & Land Reforms Act was fraudulent, inoperative and not binding upon him. According to the appellant, the defendants had instituted the suit before the Assistant Collector in which his father namely Chunkai was made as one of the opposite party. In that suit, a compromise petition was filed on October 7, 1971 with the fake signature of Chunkai and on that basis a compromise decree finally came to be passed on April 25, 1979. It is the case of the appellant that no notice of the suit was ever served upon his father Chunkai. He never appeared in the proceeding and was not even aware of it. He did not sign any compromise petition and his alleged signature on the compromise petition dated October 7, 1971 was faked. He had died much earlier and was not even alive in 1979 when the decree was passed. The appellant, accordingly, sought a declaration that the decree dated April 25, 1979 passed by the Assistant Collector, Class-I, Karwi, may be cancelled or it may be declared as void ab initio, inoperative and not binding upon him.