The petitioner is a financier. In 2007, the first respondent's husband and the 2nd and 3rd respondents' father, now no more, availed himself of two loans by pledging gold ornaments as security. Later, a dispute arose about what should be the rate of interest the financier should charge. Eventually, the matter led to a consumer dispute before the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Alappuzha.

2. The learned Consumer Forum, through Ext.P1 Order dated 06.07.2010, in C.C. No. 140 of 2010, directed the financier to charge interest at 12% and to release the gold ornaments on the borrower's paying the loan amount along with interest. Aggrieved, the financier filed appeal No. 43/2011 before the Kerala State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Trivandrum ("the Commission").

3. As seen from the record, pending the appeal, the borrower died. The financier, as an appellant, filed the Ext.P3 impleadment petition proposing to bring on record the borrower's legal heirs--respondents 1 to 3. In fact, the financier filed the impleadment petition because of the information supplied by the borrower's counsel through Ext.P4 that the borrower died on 03.09.2012.

4. When the interlocutory application for impleadment was taken up, the Commission passed Ext.P5 judgment: dismissed the appeal. Aggrieved, the financier is before this Court.

5. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Government Pleader, besides perusing the record.

6. To appreciate the correctness of the impugned judgment, we may extract it in its entirety:

"Appellant/Opposite Party is called absent. Respondent/Complainant represented by the Counsel and filed an affidavit that the Respondent/Complainant who died. In the circumstances the appeal is dismissed. The legal heirs of the complainant is not seeing any interest in this matter. This appeal is dismissed."

7. The dispute concerns property, be it money or gold, capable of getting passed on to the descendants once the possessor dies. The financier has a grievance that the Consumer Forum's Order affects his interests adversely. So, he filed a statutory appeal. Once a party to a dispute of this nature dies, still the cause of action survives. So the financier, as the appellant, wanted to bring on record the borrower's legal heirs. And he did file an application. But, the Commission, for the reasons not discernible from Ext.P5 judgment, dismissed the appeal.

8. Laws of procedure are meant to regulate effectively, assist and aid the object of doing substantial and real justice and not to foreclose even an adjudication on merits of substantial rights of citizen under personal, property and other laws. Procedure has always been viewed as the handmaid of justice and not meant to hamper the cause of justice or sanctify miscarriage of justice. Carefully read, the provisions in Order 22 CPC and the later amendments thereto would lend credit and support to the view that they were devised to ensure their continuation and culmination in an effective adjudication and not to retard the further progress of the proceedings and thereby non-suit the others similarly placed if their distinct and independent rights to property or any claim remain intact and not lost forever due to the death of one or the other in the proceedings. (See Sardar Amarjit Singh Kalra v. Pramod Gupta.) (2003) 3 SCC 272 (para 26)

9. Suffice it to observe that the judicial proceedings--original or appellate--do not survive the death of a party to the proceedings only if the right asserted or an obligation insisted upon is personal—so personal that it is incapable of getting passed on as an asset or as a liability to the successors. In other words, on the death of any person, all causes of action subsisting against or vested in him will survive against, or, as the case may be, for the benefit of, his estate.

10. The early common law rule that actio personalis moritur cum persona--a personal action dies with the person--applies only under limited circumstances