Himachal Pradesh High Court: The Bench of Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J. allowed an appeal challenging the judgment of first appellate court whereby the trial court’s order was set aside without taking the findings of trial court into consideration.
Appellant herein was a defendant in a suit for possession filed by the respondent (plaintiff before trial court), which was dismissed by the trial court. In an appeal by the respondent-plaintiff, the first appellate court set aside the trial court’s order. Aggrieved thereby, the instant regular second appeal was filed.
The sole issue pertained to the scope, ambit and power of first appellate court while deciding first appeal. It was opined that the right to file first appeal against a decree under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 is a valuable legal right of the litigant. The jurisdiction of first appellate court while hearing first appeal is very wide like that of trial court and it is open to the appellant to attack all findings of fact or/and of law in the first appeal. It is the duty of first appellate court to appreciate the entire evidence, and then it may come to a different conclusion. While doing so, the judgment of first appellate court must reflect its conscious application of mind and record findings supported by reasons, on all issues along with the contentions put forth, and pressed by the parties. While reversing a finding of fact, the first appellate court must come into close quarters with the reasoning assigned by the trial court and then assign its own reasons for arriving at a different finding.
The Court noted that in the instant case, the first appellate court had not at all adverted to findings and reasons recorded by the trial court and had simply chosen to write a separate judgment without taking into consideration any of the facts and circumstances that prevailed upon the trial court to dismiss the suit.
In view of the above, the impugned order of the first appellate court was set aside, and the matter was remanded to it for a fresh decision.[Sunder Singh v. Roop Singh, 2019 SCC OnLine HP 550, decided on 26-04-2019]
