ivil Appeal No 3901 of 1981
From the Judgment and Order dated 2211987 of the Rajasthan High Court in SB Civil Revision No 672 of 1983
VM Tarkunde and LK Pandey for the Appellant
JP Goyal RK Gupta KK Gupta NP and Rajesh NP for the Respondents
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by SHARMA J
This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment of Rajasthan High Court dismissing a civil revision application filed by the appellant in the following circumstances
The appellant a registered Society filed the suit out of which this appeal arises in the court of the District Judge Jaipur City in respect of an immovable property through its the then Secretary which was numbered as Suit No 11 of 1973
The counsel engaged by the appellant were Sri Satya Narain Sharma and Sri Shyam Bihari Agarwal
The suit was later transferred to the court of Additional Dis trict Judge No 1 Jaipur City where it was renumbered as Suit No 116 of 1974
After the institution of the suit an election of the office bearers of the Society was held on 161973 and according to the appellant s case one Sri Laxman Das Swami was elected as the Secretary
On 4974 a prayer for withdrawing the suit was made by one Hari Narain Swami through another lawyer claiming to have been elected as the Secretary of the Society
In support of his claim of having been elected as the Secretary of the Society Hari Narain Swami produced certain documents on the basis of which the Trial Court allowed the suit to be withdrawn
According to the case of the appellant Hari Narain Swami was not elected as the Secretary and had no locus standi to withdraw the suit
Since no notice was given of his applica tion for withdrawal of the suit either to the then Secretary Laxman Das Swami or to the learned advocates Sri Satya Narain Sharma or Sri Shyam Bihari Agarwal through whom the suit had been instituted none of them had any knowledge of the order passed by the court
Later in the next election another Secretary named Jeeva Nand Swami was elected and when he 236 learnt about the fate of the suit an application was filed for recalling the order of withdrawal and restoring the suit to its file
The prayer was contested and the trial court rejected the application
The appellant Society challenged the order before the High Court by a petition under section 1 15 of the Code of Civil Procedure which was also dismissed by the impugned judgment
The trial court after holding that the appellant s application filed under section 15 1 of the Code of Civil Proce dure was not maintainable proceeded further to consider the question as to who was the duly elected Secretary of the Society entitled to prosecute or withdraw the suit and accepted the case of Hari Narain Swami
The High Court has agreed with the trial court that the application under section 15 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure was not maintainable
While agreeingwith the argument of the appellant that the trial court had committed several serious errors in deciding the question as to who was the elected Secretary of the Society on the relevant date in favour of the respondent the High Court observed that the mistake could not be corrected in the present situation
It has been contended by Mr Tarkunde the learned counsel for the appellant that the application under section 15 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure for restoration of the suit was maintainable and the error committed by the trial court while recording the finding on the merits of the case was such which the High Court ought to have rectified
The learned advocate representing the respondents has strenuous ly argued that the trial court has no jurisdiction to recall its order permitting the withdrawal of the suit under its inherent power and the High Court has rightly held that the only remedy of the appellant is to file a fresh suit
The finding recorded by the trial court on the merits of the case has also been relied upon
The learned counsel for the appellant has challenged the correctness of the trial court s finding in favour of the respondent s case that Hari Narain Swami had been duly elected as the Secretary of the appellant Society and had therefore full authority to withdraw the suit on several grounds
Since we are of the view that the case has to go back to the trial court for reconsideration of the evidence on this point we do not propose to deal with the argument on behalf of the appellant in detail except mentioning one of them
It has been stated that a dispute relating to the election of the Secretary of the Society had arisen between the parties which ultimately went before the Registrar of the Cooperative Societies who decided the matter in 237 favour of Laxman Das Swami and against Hari Narain Swami
A writ petition filed thereafter by Hari Narain Swami before the High Court registered as CWP No 1406 of 1975 was dismissed
It is said that the trial court failed to appre ciate the impact of the judgments of the Registrar and the High Court which has vitiated  the impugned decision
In reply it has been argued by the learned counsel for the respondents that the High Court in CWP No 1406 of 1975 did not decide the dispute finally and left it to be settled by the civil court
Beyond pointing out that even according to the impugned judgment of the High Court the errors in the judgment of the trial court are serious we do not consider it appropriate to deal in detail with the arguments of the learned counsel as the disputed question has to go back for reconsideration
The main question which requires consideration however is whether the trial court has jurisdiction to cancel the order permitting the withdrawal of the suit under its inherent power if it is ultimately satisfied that Hari Narain Swami was not the Secretary of the appellant Society and was therefore not entitled to withdraw the suit
The position is well established that a court has inherent power to correct its own proceedings when it is satisfied that in passing a particular order it was misled by one of the parties
The principle was correctly discussed in the judg ment in Sadho Saran Rai and Others vs Anant Rai and Others AIR 1923 Patna 483 pointing out the distinction in cases between fraud practised upon the court and fraud practised upon a party
Let us consider the cases in which consent decrees are challenged
If a party makes an application before the Court for setting aside the decree on the ground that he did not give his consent the court has the power and duty to investigate the matter and to set aside the decree if it is satisfied that the consent as a fact was lacking and the court was induced to pass the decree on a fraudulent repre sentation made to it that the party had actually consented to it
However if the case of the party challenging the decree is that he was in fact a party to the compromise petition filed in the case but his consent has been procured by fraud the court cannot investigate the matter in the exercise of its inherent power and the only remedy to the party is to institute a suit
It was succinctly summed up in the aforementioned case that the factum of the consent can be investigated in summary proceedings but the reality of the consent cannot be so investigated
The principle has been followed in this country for more than a century
In Vilakathala Raman vs Vayalil Pachu 27 Madras Law Jour 238 nal Reports 172 the trial court had vacated its previous order regarding satisfaction of decree on the ground that the same was obtained by the judgment debtor s fraud on the court
The High Court while confirming the order said that in the exercise of inherent power under section 15 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure a court can vacate an order obtained by fraud on it
Reliance had been placed on an old decision of Bombay High Court of 1882 and a Madras decision of 1880
In Basangowda Hanmantgowda Patil and Others vs Churchigirigowda Yogangowda and Another ILR 34 Bombay 408 the defendant applied to the court to set aside a compromise decree on the ground that he had not engaged the lawyer claiming to be representing him and had not authorised him to compromise the suit
The court accepted his plea and ruled that it is the inherent power of every court to correct its own pro ceedings when it has been misled
Similar was the view of the Calcutta High Court in several decisions mentioned in Sadho Saran s case supra
The ratio has been later fol lowed in a string of decisions of several High Courts
The same principle applies where a suit is permitted to be withdrawn on the basis of a prayer purported to have been made on behalf of the plaintiff
The courts below were therefore not right in holding that the application of the appellant invoking the inherent jurisdiction of the court was not maintainable
If the appellant s case is factually correct that Hari Narain Swami was not its elected secretary and was therefore not authorised to withdraw the suit the prayer for withdrawing the suit was not made on behalf of the appellant at all and the impugned order was passed as a result of the court being misled
Such an order cannot bind the appellant and has to be vacated
The trial court was thus clearly wrong in dismissing the appellant s application as not maintainable and the High Court should have inter vened in its revisional power on the ground that the trial court had failed to exercise a jurisdiction vested in it by law
So far the finding of the trial court that Hari Narain Swami was not the elected Secretary of the appellant Society with authority to withdraw the suit is concerned the same suffers from several errors and requires a recon sideration
Even in the view of the High Court that is the position but it declind to exercise its revisional power on the assumption that it had no jurisdiction to do so
We therefore allow the appeal set aside the impugned judg ments of the trial court and the High Court and r emit the matter to the trial court for reconsideration of the case on merits
The parties shall be allowed to lead further evi dence in support of their cases
The costs will abide the final result in the litigation
GN Appeal allowed


Summary:
The appellant was a candidate for election to the Legis lative Assembly
As he was standing for election from a constituency other than the one in which he was an elector he filed an attested copy of the relevant part of the elec toral roll relating to the constituency in which he was an elector along with the nomination paper
On an objection by one of the candidates the Returning Officer rejected the
appellant s nomination paper for non compliance with Section 335 of the Representation of the People Act 1951
The appellant filed an Election Petition before the High Court which dismissed the same
In the appeal filed before this Court the appellant contended that since he had produced before the Returning Officer an attested copy of the relevant part of the elec toral roll of the constituency in which he was an elector the rejection of his nomination paper on the ground of non compliance with Section 335 of the said Act was wrong and bad in law
Dismissing the appear this Court HELD The publication of the integrated roll is not essential for the revision of the electoral roll to be complete and the electoral roll with the amendments duly published becomes the final electoral roll for the constitu ency
103D In the instant case admittedly the electoral roll of the State Assembly was directed to be revised and was in fact revised as on January 1 1984 and the supplementary electoral roll notifying the 101 changes to be incorporated on the revision was published and available before February 1985
102F However what the appellant produced before the Return ing Officer was not an attested copy of the final electoral roll for the said constituency although the final roll was available but only an attested copy of the electoral roll as it stood on July 21 1983
The production of such attest ed copy of the relevant part of the electoral roll as it stood before the final revision cannot amount to compliance with the provisions of sub section 5 of Section 33 of the said Act
His nomination was therefore rightly rejected
103F Ranjit Singh vs Pritam Singh  Ors   relied on
Jagannath Ramchandra Nunekar vs Gene Govind Kadam  Ors 1988 3 Judgments Today 662 distinguished