ABDUL RASHID SAHIB Vs. RAMACHANDRAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The revision petitioner is the second defendant in O.S.No.81 of 2011 on the file of Sub-Court, Gudiyattam, Vellore District. He has moved this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution challenging what passes for a decree dated 02-06-2015, passed with the consent of the defendants declaring the title of the plaintiff to the suit property.

(2.) The facts that provide the backdrop for the present revision may be bullet-pointed:

(3.) Mr. Sharath Chandran, the learned counsel for the revision petitioner contended that the trial Court ought to have realised that the Memo was allegedly signed only by the counsel, and that it should not have skipped or short circuited the procedure contemplated under Order XXIII Rule 3 CPC, and should have satisfied itself that there was a conscious relinquishment on the part of the second defendant before proceeding to pass a decree. Even if this is complied with, still the decree declaring the title to the property would have to be passed based on an unregistered sale deed. This would mean that the court was called upon to pass a decree, based on a certain Memo of the defendants, which it could not pass legally, and the trial Court was unwittingly sucked into the trap well laid by the plaintiff to pass the decree. He added that as per his instructions, the counsel for the revision petitioner before the trial court has already filed an affidavit before this Court disowning the said document. Inasmuch as the decree is vitiated by a calculated fraud on the judicial process, there is no legitimacy attached to it. He relied on the ratio in Devaki and Others Vs. Manickam [2019 SCC Online Mad 35754 : (2020) 1 Mad LJ 567]; Himalayan Coop. Group Housing Society Vs. Balwan Singh and Others [(2015) 7 SCC 373]; Annapoorni Vs. Janaki [2013 (2) MWN (Civil) 847]; Karuppathal Vs. Palanisamy and Others [2011 (3) MWN (Civil) 469]; J. Sivasubramanian and another Vs. N. Govindarajan and another [1998-1-L.W.372]; Renuka Devi Vs. D.Manoharan [1997 (III) CTC 567].