JUDGMENT

The duty of the first appellate court is not to do any reverse driving on flimsy ground by ordering remand without going into the merits and demerits of the case and the dispute involved. That is what is actually done by the first appellate court in the instant case without adhering to the requirement for a remand and in violation of the mandate under Sections 23 , 23A and 24 of Order XLI C.P.C. The legal position has been settled by this Court in Gopalakrishnan and Another v. Ponnappan and Others [2021 (5) KHC 548].

2. It is on an extraneous ground a remand of the matter was ordered without going into the merits and demerits of the adjudication rendered by the trial court and the decree and judgment were set aside for the said purpose. The first appellate court has committed a grave error in ordering remand of the matter, that too, by taking into consideration a document which was filed under Order XLI Rule 27 C.P.C. i.e. a death certificate of one Kasinathan Shetty who passed away as early as on 25/07/1960 and went on considering the same based on the age of the deceased entered in that document and found that at the time of acquisition of right over immovable property,