ORDER :

Prayer : Civil Revision Petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, praying to set aside the final decree passed by the IV Additional District and Sessions Judge, Thiruvallur at Ponneri dated 22.10.2021 in O.S.No.189 of 2020.

This is a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution through which the revision petitioners seek the setting aside of a compromise decree passed in O.S.No.189 of 2020 on the file of the IV Additional District and Sessions Court, Tiruvallur at Ponneri, as a product of fraud. The revision petitioners are not parties to the suit.

2. The dispute is a duel between the petitioners and the respondents over succession to the estate of certain Chakrapani. Neither side are his direct legal descendants, as Chakrapani and his wife Mythili died issueless. And, what is the source or basis of their claim? While the revision petitioners, who are nephews of Chakrapani (they being the children of his brother Dayalan) stake a claim to his estate based on his alleged Will dated 24.08.1979, their opponents, who are the children of Chakrapani's brother-in-law Gajapathi (brother of Mythili) assert title to the same estate on the basis of a registered Will dated 10.04.1980, said to have been executed by Chakrapani's widow Mythili. This is the setting. To this certain additional facts may be provided for completion of narration:

a) Chakrapani, whose estate has now generated this dispute, was born to Bakthavatalu Naidu and Kannammal. As indicated above he had married Mythili. And, he had one brother Dayalan. (Besides Dayalan, he had other siblings, but reference to them is not very germane for deciding this case.)

b) Within about few months since the execution of the Will dated 24.08.1979, in favour of the revision petitioners, Chakrapani died, to be precise on 08.03.1980. He predeceased his parents. And on the 34th day post his demise, on 10.04.1980, his widow Mythili is said to have executed a registered Will in favour of the children of her brother Gajapathi. Vasanthkumar and Champalatha, the respondents herein, are the children of Gajapathi. And, she barely lived for another five months and died on 16.09.1980. In 1990, Chakrapani's mother Kannammal died almost after a decade of the former's death.

c) Be that as it may, both Vasanthkumar and Champalatha, joined to institute C.S.No.563 of 1981 on the file of this Court, for partition of the very estate which is the subject matter of the Will referred to above. They were minors then. This suit was laid, inter alia, against (a) Chakrapani's parents Bakthavatalu Naidu and Kannammal and (b) Chakrapani's brother Dayalan. The suit was later transferred to the IV Additional City Civil Court, Chennai, owing to change in the pecuniary jurisdiction of this Court, and renumbered as O.S.No.3403 of 1997. On 17.10.2000, this suit was dismissed for default.

d) Thereafter, Vasanthkumar and Champalatha together took out two applications, one in I.A.No.23148 of 2006 for restoration of O.S.No.3403 of 1997 under Order XI Rule 9 CPC, and I.A.No.4224 of 2007 for condonation of delay in filing it. On 13.12.2007, these two applications were dismissed for default. Subsequently another set of applications in I.A.No.7867 and 7868 of 2008 were taken out for restoration of the earlier mentioned two applications. By an order dated 04.02.2010, the trial Court dismissed these applications. This order has since become final.

e) It is in this backdrop, Champalatha has laid a suit before IV Additional District Court, Ponneri, in O.S.No.189 of 2020 against Vasanthkumar for partition of her half share on the strength of the Will of Mythili. That suit ended in a consent decree passed by the trial court on 22.10.2021. What is significant is that, unlike the earlier suit in O.S.No.3403 of 1997, none of the defendants to that suit or their successors in title/interest were made parties to O.S.No.189 of 2020. It is alleged that on the strength of this decree, the revenue records (which hither to s