In a clear-cut ruling that shuts the door on posthumous legal second-guessing, the Supreme Court has held that legal heirs cannot attack a compromise decree if the original party to the dispute didn’t challenge it during their lifetime.
The top court dismissed an appeal by two heirs who attempted to unravel a compromise deed their father had entered into—one that settled a property dispute among family members. The crux of the Court’s position: the only legal way to contest such a decree is to file a recall application under Order 23 Rule 3 of the Civil Procedure Code. And that application had to come from the man who signed the deal—while he was alive.
“No suit can lie against a compromise decree,” the bench observed, “unless the party who agreed to it goes to the court and asks for its recall.” But in this case, their father didn’t even lift a finger. In fact, not only did he never challenge the consent decree, he outright admitted to it.
The appellants alleged coercion, claiming their father was pressured by his father and brothers into accepting a deal that gave away what was rightfully his self-acquired property. But the Court wasn’t moved.
Even if coercion existed, the bench made it clear, the remedy was not to file a new lawsuit but to petition the same court that passed the decree. And that window closed with the father’s inaction.
“Once the decree was passed and not questioned by the man who agreed to it,” the Court stated, “his legal heirs can’t swoop in later and claim it was all a mistake.”
In reaffirming the finality of a compromise that wasn’t legally challenged at the right time and by the right person, the Court has signaled—once again—that procedural shortcuts don’t fly in property disputes.
The case, titled Manjunath Tirakappa Malagi and Anr vs Gurusiddappa Tirakappa Malagi (Dead Through LRs), now joins a growing list of judgments reinforcing the legal sanctity of consent decrees—no matter how bitter the inheritance may taste.
