When can Appellate Court entertain an objection as to territorial or pecuniary jurisdiction of the court passing a decree?

Question: When can the Appellate Court entertain an objection as to territorial or pecuniary jurisdiction of the court passing a decree? [UPHJS. 1996, Raj J. 2004]

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Answer

Section 21 of The Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 deals with the law relating to entertaining an objection as to territorial or pecuniary jurisdiction.

Section 21(1) provides that an objection regarding territorial jurisdiction (the place of suing) shall not be allowed by any appellate or revisional Court unless the following three conditions are satisfied:

i) such objection was taken in the Court of first instance.
ii) at the earliest possible opportunity and in all cases where issues or settled at or before such settlement, and iii) there has been a consequent failure of justice.

In Pathumma v. Kutty, AIR 1981 SC 1683, the Supreme Court observed that an objection by the appellate or revisional court may be allowed only when the above three conditions are satisfied. In same case, the Supreme Court further held that all these three conditions must co-exist.

Section 21(2) provides that an objection as to the competence of a Court with reference to the pecuniary limits of its jurisdiction shall not be allowed by an Appellate or Revisional Court unless three conditions laid down for entertaining an objection regarding territorial jurisdiction under Section 21(a) are satisfied.

Policy underlying Section 21 has been clearly explained by the Supreme Court of India in Kiran Singh v. Chaman Paswan, AIR 1954 SC 340 (342), wherein it was held that “is that when a case has been tried by a Court on the merits and judgment rendered, it should not be liable to be reversed purely on technical grounds unless a failure of justice has resulted. The policy of the Legislature has been to treat objections as to jurisdiction, both territorial and pecuniary, as technical and not open to consideration by an appellate court unless there has been prejudice on the merits.”

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