Legal Heirs' Suit Against Compromise Decree Not Maintainable When Original Party Didn't File Recall Application : Supreme Court

 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA 

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CIVIL APPEAL NO(S)._______________ OF 2025

 [@ SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CIVIL) NO(S). 4812 OF 2023] 

MANJUNATH TIRAKAPPA MALAGI AND ANR …APPELLANT(S) 

Versus 

GURUSIDDAPPA TIRAKAPPA MALAGI (DEAD THROUGH LRS) …RESPONDENT(S)

Para 12 of Judgment:The only remedy against a compromise decree is to file a recall application. This Court in Pushpa Devi Bhagat v. Rajinder Singh, (2006) 5 SCC 566 summed up the position of law as follows: 

            “17. The position that emerges from the amended provisions of Order 23 can be summed up thus:             

            (i) No appeal is maintainable against a consent decree having regard to the specific bar contained                in Section 96(3) CPC.

         (ii) No appeal is maintainable against the order of the court recording the compromise (or refusing                 to record a 1 Section 96(3) of CPC: No appeal shall lie from a decree  passed by the Court with                the consent of parties. 8 compromise) in view of the deletion of clause (m) of Rule 1 Order 43. 

        (iii) No independent suit can be filed for setting aside a compromise decree on the ground that the                   compromise was not lawful in view of the bar contained in Rule 3-A. (iv) A consent decree                      operates as an estoppel and is valid and binding unless it is set aside by the court which passed                  the consent decree, by an order on an application under the proviso to Rule 3 Order 23.

         Therefore, the only remedy available to a party to a consent decree to avoid such consent decree, is         to approach the court which recorded the compromise and made a decree in terms of it, and                   establish that there was no compromise. In that event, the court which recorded the compromise             will itself consider and decide the question as to whether there was a valid compromise or not. This         is so because a consent decree is nothing but contract between parties superimposed with the seal of        approval of the court. The validity of a consent decree depends wholly on the validity of the                    agreement or compromise on which it is made…” (Emphasis Provided) 

    Thus, even if we accept the contention of the appellants that their father was coerced by his brothers and father (appellants’grandfather) to enter into a compromise, which led to the passing of the consent decree, a fresh suit is still not a valid remedy. In that situation, the appellants’ father should have 9 filed a recall application before the Court that had passed the decree. The appellants’ father has never done so! Moreover, he had admitted the consent decree and never questioned its validity