Second Appeal - Law prevails over Truth

In a decision[1] over s.100 of CPC, his lordship Hon. Dalveer Bhandari, J has referred 54^th report of the Law Commission of India, submitted in 1973, wherein the Law Commission has said that it may be permissible to point out that a search for absolute truth in the administration of justice, however, laudable, must in the very nature of things be put under some reasonable restraint. In other words, a search for truth has to be reconciled with the doctrine of finality. In judicial hierarchy finality is absolutely important because that gives certainty to the law.   Even in the interest of litigants themselves it may not be unreasonable to draw a line in respect of the two different categories of litigation where procedure will say at a certain stage that questions of fact have been decided by the lower courts and the matter should be allowed to rest where it lies without any further appeal. This may be somewhat harsh to an individual litigant; but, in the larger interest of the administration of justice, this view seems to us to be juristically sound and pragmatically wise. According to the said report, any rational system of administration of civil law should recognize that litigation in civil cases should have two hearings on facts - one by the trial court and one by the court of appeal.

The question could perhaps be asked, why the litigant who wishes to have justice from the highest Court of the State should be denied the opportunity to do so, at least where there is a flaw in the conclusion on facts reached by the trial court or by the court of first appeal. The answer is obvious that even litigants have to be protected against too persistent a pursuit of their goal of perfectly satisfactory justice. An unqualified right of first appeal may be necessary for the satisfaction of the defeated litigant; but a wide right of second appeal is more in the nature of a luxury.[2]

“It may be relevant to recall the statement of Douglas Payne on "Appeals on Questions of Fact" reported in (1958) Current Legal Problem 181.He observed that the real justification for appeals on questions of this sort is not so much that the law laid down by the appeal court is likely to be superior to that laid down by a lower court as that there should be a final rule laid down which binds all future courts and so facilitates the prediction of the law. In such a case the individual litigants are sacrificed, with some justification, on the altar of law-making and must find such consolation as they can in the monument of a leading case.”[3]

The predecessors of the High Courts in their civil appellate jurisdiction were the Sadar Divani Adalats. The right of appeal to the Sadar Divani Adalat was very wide initially, but came to be severely curtailed in the course of time. The "Cornwallis Scheme", for example, made provision for two appeals in every category of cases, irrespective of its value. By 1814, this was reduced to one appeal only. Only in cases of Rs.5,000 or over, there could be two appeals; one to the Provincial Court of Appeal and second to the Sadar Divani Adalat. As Lord Hastings observed, - "The facility of appeal is founded on a most laudable principle of securing, by double and treble  checks, the proper decision of all suits, but the   utopian idea, in its attempt to prevent individual  injury from a wrong decision, has been productive of general injustice by withholding redress, and  general inconvenience, by perpetuating litigation.”[4]

Even prior to amendment, the consistent position has been that the courts should not interfere with the concurrent findings of facts. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as early as in 1890 stated that there is no jurisdiction to entertain a second appeal on the ground of an erroneous finding of fact, however, gross or inexcusable the error may seem to be and they added a note of warning that no Court in India has power to add to, or enlarge, the grounds specified in Section 100. Now, after 1976 Amendment, the scope of Section 100 has been drastically curtailed and narrowed down. The High Courts would have jurisdiction of interfering under Section 100 C.P.C. only in a case where substantial questions of law are involved and those questions have been clearly formulated in the memorandum of appeal. At the time of admission of the second appeal, it is the bounden duty and obligation of the High Court to formulate substantial questions of law and then only the High Court is permitted to proceed with the case to decide those questions of law. The language used in the amended section specifically incorporates the words as "substantial question of law" which is indicative of the legislative intention. It must be clearly understood that the legislative intention was very clear that legislature never wanted second appeal to become "third trial on facts" or "one more dice in the gamble".        The effect of the amendment mainly, according to the amended section, was:

   (i)     The High Court would be justified in admitting  the second appeal only when a substantial    question of law is involved;   (ii)    The substantial question of law to precisely  state such question; (iii)   A duty has been cast on the High Court to  formulate substantial question of law before   hearing the appeal;     (iv)   Another part of the Section is that the appeal  shall be heard only on that question.

His lordship Bhandari, J. observed that the fact that, in a series of cases, the Supreme Court was compelled to interfere was because the true legislative intendment and scope of Section 100 C.P.C. have neither been appreciated nor applied. In this case the supreme Court (through Hon. Bhandari,J.), adopting rather a legalistic approach made a self critics by observing that “A class of judges while administering law honestly believe that, if they are satisfied that, in any second appeal brought before them evidence has been grossly misappreciated either by the lower appellate court or by both the courts below, it is their duty to interfere, because they seem     to    feel   that   a   decree   following   upon   a   gross misappreciation of evidence involves injustice and it is the duty of the High Court to redress such injustice. We would like to reiterate that the justice has to be administered in accordance with law.”[5]

            Now, is it wrong to say that, the Truth has to give way to the Law ?