The central legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of 'judgment on the merits' in the context of the conclusive nature of foreign judgments under S.13 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

1. This Second Appeal raises the question of the maintainability of the plaintiff's suit which is based on a foreign judgment. The parties to the suit were residing within the jurisdiction of the Court of Requests at Jaffna in Ceylon in the year 1949. The plaintiff instituted a suit against the defendants in the said Court for recovery of a certain amount alleged to be due to him. The defendants on whom the summons had been duly served, failed to appear in court and the suit was decreed ex-parte in favour of the plaintiff on 26th May 1949. Ext. A is copy of that decree. Some time after the passing of that decree, the defendants returned to their native place Navaikulam which is within the jurisdiction of the Attingal Munsiff's Court. The plaintiff thereupon instituted the present suit O.S. No. 598/1950, in the Attingal Munsiff's Court for recovery of the amount due to him under the decree of the Jaffna Court, as evidenced by Ext. A. In resisting the suit the defendants contended that they were not residing within the jurisdiction of the Jaffna Court when the plaintiff obtained the decree Ext. A against them, that the decree happened to be passed as a result of the fraud practised by the plaintiff and that the suit based on such a decree passed by a foreign court cannot be made the basis of any claim against the defendants in the present suit. The trial court repelled all these contentions and definitely found that the defendants were residing within the jurisdiction of the Jaffna Court at the time of the passing of the decree Ext. A and that the plaintiff had not been guilty of any fraud in obtaining that decree. It was further found that the decree Ext. A must be deemed to be a decree passed on the merits of the plaintiff's claim and that therefore the present suit based on that decree is maintainable. Accordingly, a decree was passed in favour of the plaintiff. The 2nd defendant took the matter in appeal before the Trivandrum District Court. The question of the maintainability of the suit was alone argued in the above appeal. On that question the lower appellate court differed from the conclusion of the trial court and held that the decree Ext. A was not one passed on the merits of the claim and that on the basis of such a decree the plaintiff is not entitled to maintain the present suit. Consistent with that finding the trial court's decree was reversed and the plaintiff's, suit was dismissed. He has therefore come up in Second Appeal.

2. The rule as to the conclusive nature of a foreign judgment, is enunciated in S.13 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The opening portion of that Section states:

"A foreign judgment shall be conclusive as to any matter thereby directly adjudicated upon between the same parties or between parties under whom they or any of them claim litigating under the same title".

The exceptions to this rule are enumerated in clauses (a) to (f) of the same section and they are the following:

"(a) where it has not been pronounced by a court of competent jurisdiction;

(b) where it has not been given on the merits of the case;

(c) where it appears on the face of the proceedings to be founded on an incorrect view of international law or a refusal to recognise the law of India in cases in which such law is applicable;

(d) where the proceedings in which the judgment was obtained are opposed to natural justice;

(e) where it has been obtained by fraud;

(f) where it sustains a claim founded on a breach of any law in force in India".

Defendants' resistance to the plaintiff's suit is based on exception (b). If the decree Ext. A is not one passed on the merits of the case, it is obvious that the decree cannot conclusively establish the plaintiff's claim so as to entitle him to maintain the present suit against the defendants on the basis of that decree. That this decree was passed ex-parte admits of no doubt. In fact, it is expressly stated in Ext. A that it was because the defendants were absent, although they were d