The main legal principle established is that a decision on a point of law, even if erroneous, is res judicata and cannot be questioned in subsequent proceedings between the same parties.

Sadasiva Aiyar, J.

1. In A.A.A.O. No. 205 of 1919. This civil miscellaneous Second Appeal has arisen out of an execution proceeding, the decree-holder being the Ist appellant. He obtained an executable decree in the Madura District Munsifs Court on 23rd February 1909 for sale of certain lands. On the 1st January 1912, a new Court called the District Munsifs Court of Melur was established which obtained jurisdiction over those lands. A valid application for execution was made to the proper Court on the 7th February 1912. On the 3rd April 1912 an oral application was made to the Madura Munsifs Court for extension of time to take a step in execution. This oral application of 3rd April 1912 to the Madura Munsifs Court was not made to the proper Court (or to a proper Court) according to the current of decisions of this High Court which obtained till 1919 when the Full Bench Decision in Seeni Nadan v. Muthusamy Pillai (1919) I.L.R. 42 Mad. 821 S.C. 37 M.L.J. 284 was pronounced. Following the prevailing view, the application made to the Madura Munsifs Court on 1st April 1915 was dismissed by the High Court on second appeal on 17th September 1917 as being an invalid application. In so dismissing the application made to the Madura Munsifs Court on the ground that it had no jurisdiction to entertain it and that the proper Court to entertain it was the Melur Munsifs Court, the High Court further remarked that as the previous application of 3rd April 1912 had also been made to the incompetent Madura Munsifs Court, it would not save limitation for the application of Ist April 1915 even if this application of 1st April 1915 had been made to the competent Melur Court.

2. The present application for execution was made to the Melur Munsifs Court on the 23rd November, 1917 which was the proper Court to entertain the application according to the view which prevailed till 1919, but this application has also been dismissed on the ground that it was barred by limitation because the application made in 1915 to the Madura Munsifs Court was decided by the High Court to be an application made to a wrong Court and hence could not save limitation.

3. The vakil for the appellants argues that as the former current of decisions was held to be erroneous in Seeni Nadan v. Muthusamy Pillai (1919) I.L.R. 42 Mad. 821 S.C. 37 M.L.J. 284 the decision of this Court which held in 1917 that the application made to the Madura Munsifs Court on 1st April 1915 was not an application to a competent Court was erroneous, that that erroneous decision being a decision on a question of law is not binding upon the parties when the same question arises in a subsequent proceeding even though between the same parties and that therefore the present application of November 1917 being within three years of the previous competent application of Ist April 1915 is not barred by limitation.

4. It is argued on the other side by the 2nd respondents learned vakil that even though the decision of the High Court in September 1917 in the execution application of April 1915 that it was made to an incompetent Court may be erroneous, that decision so far as it positively decided that it was made to an incompetent Court and was not in accordance with law is a conclusive adjudication between the parties as to the nature of that application and cannot be questioned when the point whether it was a competent application arises for decision in a subsequent execution application in the same suit.

5. I must admit that I have found some difficulty in deciding between the above respective contentions on both sides. (Several other difficult questions were also argued during the hearing of this case, but a reference to them will only tend to cloud the clear grasp of the above sharply opposed contentions).

6. In Sree Rajah Bommadevara Venkata Narasimha Naidu v. Andavolu Venkataralnam (1916) 32 M.L.J. 63 this Bench considered a similar question and made pronouncements thereon. My learned brother referred in