IMPORTANT POINT
Interference by the High Court is permissible only in cases involving substantial questions of law.

ORDER

Leave granted.

2. This appeal is directed against the judgment dated 3.10.2007 passed by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad in Second Appeal No.865 of 1997.

3. Learned senior counsel appearing for the appellant raised a preliminary objection that in the impugned judgment, the High Court has set-aside the concurrent findings of facts of two courts without formulating any substantial question of law which is mandatory according to Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure after 1976 Amendment.

4. There is considerable material which led to 1976 Amendment in the Code of Civil Procedure. Legislative Background in the 54th Report of the Law Commission of India submitted in 1973:

5. The comprehensive 54th Report of the Law Commission of India submitted to the Government of India in 1973 gives historical background regarding ambit and scope of Section 100 C.P.C. 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.

6. In the 54th Report of the Law Commission of India, it is incorporated 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. It is in the light of this basic approach that we will now proceed to consider some of the cases which were decided more than a century ago.

7. 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.

8. The rational behind allowing a second appeal on a question of law is, that there ought to be some tribunal having jurisdiction that will enable it to maintain, and, where necessary, re-establish, uniformity throughout the State on important legal issues, so that within the area of the State, the law, in so far as it is not enacted law, should be laid down, or capable of being laid down, by one court whose rulings will be binding on all courts, tribunals and authorities within the area over which it has jurisdiction. This is implicit in any legal system where the higher courts have authority to make binding decisions on questions of law.

9. 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 justi