Paragraph numbers below are the court’s original numbering, recovered from the source text.
11. The path is therefore settled: the proviso to Order XXIII Rule 3 is not optional; it is the exclusive first port of call for any party on record who denies the compromise. Order XLIII Rule 1-A does not create a new right of appeal; it merely enables an appellant, already before the Appellate Court, to attack the decree on the ground that the compromise should not have been recorded. When the fact of compromise is not disputed, the bar in Section 96(3) is absolute.
12. The present appellant was a defendant-of-record in Special Civil Suit No. 6 of 2016 and Special Civil Suit No. 19 of 2016. Both decrees rest on written compromise terms signed by counsel who held unquestioned vakalatnamas. The signature of duly authorised counsel is the signature of the party. The decrees are therefore consent decrees within the meaning of Section 96(3). The appellant 1934 never invoked the proviso to Order XXIII Rule 3; instead, she lodged Appeals from Orders on the footing of the deleted Order XLIII Rule 1(m). The Larger Bench of the High Court was correct in holding that such appeals are incompetent since 1976.
13. The appellant’s submission that allegations of fraud transform a consent decree into an ordinary decree cannot be accepted. Fraud, want of authority or other vitiating elements are precisely the matters that the proviso directs the Trial Court to examine. Unless and until that route is pursued, the statutory bar in Section 96(3) of the CPC remains operative.
14. It must also be noted that the presence of subsequent purchasers does not assist the appellant. Those purchasers were never parties to the suits; they have, with leave, instituted first appeals in the High Court, a course that Section 96(1) of the CPC permits to nonparties. The appellant, by contrast, was a party to the suits and cannot appropriate the remedy reserved for third parties. Both suits were eventually compromised before a Lok Adalat. Section 21(2) of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 interdicts any appeal from the award of a Lok Adalat. The limited supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India remains available, but has not been invoked.
15. We are satisfied that the Larger Bench took the right view. It noticed that the CPC, after the 1976 amendment, works in two distinct ways. If a person was already a party to the suit, and denies that any lawful compromise ever took place, the CPC requires that person to go back to the Trial Court under the proviso to Order XXIII Rule 3 and ask that Court to decide whether the compromise is valid. On the other hand, someone who was not a party to the suit, but whose rights are hurt by a consent decree, may approach the Appellate Court in a First Appeal under Section 96 of the CPC, but only after obtaining leave. Order XLIII Rule 1A does not create an independent appeal at all; it merely says that, once an appeal is otherwise before the Court, the appellant may argue that the compromise should, or should not, have been recorded. Seen in that light, the High Court’s directions correctly apply the structure of the statute and do not call for interference.
16. For the reasons recorded above, the civil appeals fail and are dismissed. [2025] 4 S.C.R. Sakina Sultanali Sunesara (Momin) v. Shia Imami Ismaili Momin Jamat Samaj & Ors.
17. The judgment dated 28.08.2019 of the Larger Bench of the High Court of Gujarat, as well as the consequential order of the Single Judge dated 06.09.2019, are affirmed.
18. It is open to the appellant, if so advised, to invoke the proviso to Order XXIII Rule 3 of the CPC before the Trial Court. We express no opinion on the merits of any such application.
19. There shall be no order as to costs.
20. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of. Result of the case: Appeals dismissed. †Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain