Section 10 CPC mandates stay of subsequent suit if issues directly/substantially same as prior pending suit between same parties on common property/cause challenging prior decree, preventing parallel trials despite differing reliefs.

By way of this petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has assailed the order passed by the learned Trial Court dated 05.01.2023, in terms whereof, an application filed by the petitioner under Section 10 of the CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE , by the respondent-defendant, has been allowed.

2. Brief facts necessary for the adjudication of the present petition are that the petitioner herein filed a civil suit bearing No. 298 of 2022 for the grant of decree of declaration to the effect that the plaintiff and defendant were joint owners of land comprised in Khata No. 265, Khatauni No. 393, Khasra No. 1845/683, 1851/685, 1855/686, land measuring 00-00-53 hects., situated at Mohal Aima, Hadbast. No. 212, Tehsil Palampur, District Kangra, H.P. This suit was filed in the month of December, 2022, however, before this suit, the petitioner had earlier also filed a suit i.e. Civil Suit No. 168/2021, titled as Rajinder Kumar vs. Madhu Vats and others , in which the following relief was prayed:-

“It is therefore humbly prayed that the suit of the plaintiff, as prayed for, in the heading of this plaint, may kindly be decreed with costs in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendants in the ends of justice.”

3. In the subsequent suit, i.e. civil suit No. 298 of 2022, the defendant filed an application under Section 10 of the CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE , praying for stay of the suit on the ground of res sub judice.

4. Learned Trial Court has allowed this application in terms of the impugned order by returning the following findings:-

“6. I have heard the respected members at bar and have also gone through the record with utmost care.

7. So far as application in hand is concerned, it is an admitted fact on record that the plaintiff has filed the present suit seeking decree for declaration to the effect that the plaintiff and defendants are joint owners in possession over the suit land and the suit land has not yet been partitioned by metes and bounds, but on the basis of one procured decree/judgment dated 06.04.2021 in CS No.61/21 dated 17.03.2012, titled as Varinder Kumar versus Pardeep Kumar and others whereby the said suit was got conclusively decided in favour of defendants No.1 to 3 in connivance with defendants No.4 to 6 and the present plaintiff was never arrayed in the list of defendants of proforma defendant and defendants No. 1 to 3 managed the interest of plaintiff and other necessary co-sharers i.e. defendants No.7 to 9, hence the said decree/judgment be declared null and void which is the result of fraud, mis-representation and conclusiveness and illegal and not binding upon the plaintiff with consequential relief of permanent prohibitory injunction restraining the defendant from changing the nature of suit land or to enforce the judgment and decree on the basis of alleged procured judgment and decree.

8. In this suit, alongwith written statement, present application has been filed seeking stay of the present suit on the ground that the plaintiff has already filed Civil suit No.168/21 titled as Rajinder Kuma versus Madhu Vats and others against descendants No.1 to 3 which is pending in the court wherein the plaintiff has prayed for the relief of permanent prohibitory injunction restraining the defendants from causing interference, cutting and uprooting the hedge (barbed wire) digging any part of the land, constructing any path and changing the nature of land by way of raising permanent structure or in the alternative decree for mandatory injunction directing the defendants to restore the suit land in its original