A writ petition challenging a compromise decree entered before Lok Adalat by non-impleaded necessary parties is maintainable due to allegations of fraud and procedural irregularity.

ORDER:

M.NAGAPRASANNA, J.

The petitioners are before this Court calling in question a decree dated 08.07.2023, passed by the II Additional Civil Judge and JMFC, Hospete, in O.S.No.165 of 2023, drawn on the compromise petition entered into between the respondents, before the Lok Adalat and have also sought certain consequential reliefs.

2. Heard Sri Smt. Vidyavati M. Kotturshettar, learned counsel for the petitioners and Smt. Ranjita G. Alagawadi, learned counsel for respondent Nos.1, 2, 4 to 6.

3. Facts adumbrated, are as follows:

The petitioners and the respondents are said to be the members of the same family belonging to different branches of the children of one Khemmani Hanumanthappa who is the original owner of the suit schedule properties. A suit in O.S.No.165 of 2023 is instituted by the respondents seeking a decree of partition and separate possession of the suit properties. The said suit comes to be decreed on account of a compromise entered into between the respondents in terms of an order dated 08.07.2023. Aggrieved by the said decree the petitioners file a regular appeal in R.A.No.41 of 2024 challenging the decree of compromise passed by the Lok Adalat in O.S.No.165 of 2023. The petitioners then realize that a regular appeal was not maintainable before the concerned Court and therefore, they withdraw the same. After the withdrawal of the said regular appeal, the present petition is preferred on 14.03.2025 challenging the compromise decree.

4. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners would vehemently contend that though the petitioners were necessary parties to the suit in O.S.No.165 of 2023, they were not impleaded as the parties in the said proceedings. The genealogical tree produced before the concerned Court depicting it to be the family was incomplete and erroneous. The plaintiff and the defendants have in collusion, entered into a compromise with an ulterior motive, without any share to the petitioners of their legitimate rights in the suit schedule properties. Learned counsel submits that the suit schedule properties were shared by all the branches of Kemmanni @ Thimmanathkeri Hanumanthappa, in terms of the partition deed dated 26.03.1968. In terms of the compromise decree, the branch of Poojaraiah is getting more share than in terms of the partition deed of the year 1968. On all these grounds, learned counsel would submit that the rights of these petitioners cannot be taken away by the compromise entered into between the plaintiff and the defendants without making the petitioners as parties. She would submit that the compromise decree is obtained by fraud and only remedy to challenge the decree drawn before the Lok Adalat is the present petition. Learned counsel would seek to place reliance upon plethora of judgments all of which would bear consideration in the course of the order, qua their relevance.

5. Per contra, learned counsel appearing for the respondents would vehemently refute the submissions contending that the petitioners admittedly were not parties to the proceedings. If the petitioners are not parties to the proceedings, the petitioners cannot file the subject petition and the writ petition is not maintainable by third parties, who were not parties to the compromise. Learned counsel would submit the aforesaid ground would suffice for this Court not to entertain the petition. Learned counsel would seek to place reliance upon several judgments to buttress her submission, that a third party cannot maintain a writ petition against a compromise decree.

6. I have given my anxious