A Judgment and Order Obtained Through Fraud, Etc. (Part 1)

This lecture is of great importance, and it will make you aware of something that typically leaves an ordinary understanding person completely bewildered, thinking, what has happened here. For example, a person dies, it's routine that after death, some lawful heirs are grieving, some are lazy, thinking, it's our property, no one's going to put it in their own name, they sit around calmly for a year, two years, five years, ten years, some cases go on for as long as fifty years without the inheritance mutation even being processed. What I'm about to tell you today is: A died, A had a property, now the lawful heirs are asleep, they think, the property is ours, it's with us, all's well, and one morning, court officials show up, police come, they come, pick up the belongings, throw them outside, the poor fellow panics, is bewildered, thinking, we're sitting in our own home, and all our belongings were thrown outside, someone else has taken possession, police are present, a bailiff is present, getting him possession, this is distressing, no doubt about it, this is the worst-case scenario. What's a slightly less bad scenario? That you get news that your property has been transferred into someone else's name through the court, and now he's coming to take possession from you, or your tenant, or your agricultural contractor informs you that, brother, A has come, A says he has a court decree, I should be given possession, I never gave him possession, so let's see what's going on. You find out that he filed a suit in court, got a decree in his favour, and after getting the decree, came to enforce it. Now what could have happened to get this decree, A died, after his death B stepped up, created a gift deed, created a sale agreement, an agreement of sale, created some document, and using it filed a case against the deceased. Now, having filed the case against the deceased, he got it proceed ex-parte, since the deceased couldn't appear, he got the proceedings stopped, and having done that, he got the decree, the decree was granted, the decree was executed, in execution the gift deed got registered in his name, the sale deed, whatever the matter was, whatever the document, it got registered in his name, and now he's obtaining a bailiff for possession. Now the bailiff's procedure is: first the bailiff goes alone, then he goes accompanied by police. Now if this fraud has happened, don't panic, immediately hire a lawyer wherever this decree was obtained, and you should know that in this regard you must file a formal application for fraud and misrepresentation, under Section 12, sub-section 2, of the Code of Civil Procedure, this application, and write in it that, well, we are the deceased's co-heirs, no such document ever existed, he created forged documents, misrepresented to the court, committed fraud, and obtained this judgment, the court will immediately suspend the operation of this judgment and decree, suspend it, all your worries resolved, and if you've already been dispossessed, the court will immediately suspend the operation of that judgment, and after suspending it, order right then that they be restored to possession, and then, again through a bailiff, possession will be given back to you. Now here let me tell you something you should know: the law says a suit cannot be filed against a dead person, civil law says a suit cannot be filed against a dead person. If someone filed a suit against A saying he had an agreement of sale with me and isn't honouring it, get it enforced, and that suit later gets decreed, a judgment comes, then that judgment and decree is trash, because as soon as his heirs go and present the death certificate to the court showing that on the day this suit was filed this person had already died, the whole proceeding will be entirely nullified, the proceeding itself will end. The law doesn't stop even there, the law says that if a plaintiff filed a suit against four defendants, and one of those defendants was not alive on the day this suit was filed, had already died, and proof of this reaches the court, then the entire suit will be nullified, because the law has stated with great clarity that if a suit is filed against a dead person, that suit is not maintainable. A decree obtained through fraud and misrepresentation will not only be set aside by the court, but ultimately the judgment will go in your favour. Now here's the other side of it: A had a property, A entered into an agreement of sale, after entering the agreement of sale A disappeared, his whereabouts unknown, eventually the buyer filed a suit for specific performance, that this agreement happened, this is the remaining amount, or he's already taken the full amount, I have possession of this property, he's not registering it for me, get his registration compelled, that suit gets decreed, after the decree his heirs come forward, saying, on the day this suit was filed, he had already died. Now whom does this bomb fall on? On the person who actually bought that land, who filed that suit. Now he too need not panic, if he's telling the truth. He need not panic because that suit will simply be nullified, he can immediately file a second suit on the same proceeding, same matters, and write that, sir, he had been missing from view for this long, I had already written in my first suit too that he had disappeared from view, I couldn't find him, the address I had was the same, I am truthful. The court will accept that address as correct, the law will set that aside, will set that matter aside, because if some negative fact comes up tomorrow, this same person will bear the consequences. Now if they come and say, sir, he had already died, then this suit was against a dead person, now you have possession, the suit is nullified, no need to worry, immediately file a second suit. Now in the second suit, make all his heirs parties, saying, I entered this agreement with A, A has died, I filed a suit against him, when the suit was decreed and mutation was passed in my name, they came forward and said that on the day this suit was filed he had already died. Now these lawful heirs have come forward, they are the lawful heirs and defendants, my suit be decreed. Truth is not afraid, no matter what kind of fraud happened, you're truthful with the court, you have no reason to panic, everything will be reversed and, once reversed, will go in your favour. Don't be scared of fraud, stand firm, difficulty has come from Allah Almighty, from the human beings Allah Almighty created, from a fraudster, difficulty has come, now the solution to difficulty isn't to start crying and wailing, start making a fuss, go into a circle and start talking there, go to a village council and start talking there, go to the neighbourhood and start talking there, none of that will help. Until you grab it by the throat. And a legal document can only be grabbed by the throat through lawful means, a legal paper cannot be grabbed unlawfully. Keep one more thing in mind, this kind of fraud and misrepresentation happens, and often when a person finds out, some areas still have village councils that convene, keep in mind, from the day you learn of the fraud, your limitation clock starts, and if your limitation expires, you're finished. Suppose you find out about the fraud, when you find out, you convene a village council, now the other person is alert, he makes a video, dated, that on this date at this time we're here, this video is being recorded, he stages a drama there, makes you appear false to the extent of that video during the council session, and cuts the clip where it was said, well, alright, the council will reconvene in a week. He keeps doing this, doing this, and lets your limitation run out, and after it runs out, the council says, settle your own matter, sort it out yourselves, we can't resolve it. Now he goes to court, files a 12(2) application, saying there was fraud and misrepresentation, writes in the knowledge column that he learned of it two days ago, he goes and says, sir, when did he learn of it, two days ago, when actually he had known six months earlier, here, look at this video from six months ago in which they're proven liars, now someone must have provoked them, so they've come to court, they already had knowledge of this. Now, with this application, there's no application for condonation of delay at all, now what will you do? So you need to stay a bit alert, today's era is different from the era twenty years ago. Twenty, twenty-five years ago, in a village, a town, if someone asked for two marlas, three marlas, four marlas, people would just give it, thinking, what's it worth, give it, he's a poor man. Today's era is that a single marla is worth from ten lakh rupees up to two, three, four crore rupees, one marla. Now whoever stays alert, whoever opens their eyes and their mind and fights for their rights with full awareness, will get their right. I told you about a Supreme Court judgment, people came for inheritance fifty-three years later, the Supreme Court gave a clear ruling that you, your father, did not act, you did not act for this long, so it will be presumed that you had abandoned your right, your father had abandoned his right, he never claimed it during his lifetime. The Supreme Court dismissed their claim on this basis alone. If a person is himself asleep on his rights, why should the courts wake him up and give him relief, they say, if he's asleep, there must be a reason. The court asked a question, your father lived for eleven years, why didn't he act, forty-two years, you were born, grew up, reached the threshold of old age, why didn't you act, because that transaction had already gone into someone else's name, not just someone else's name, it had gone through three more hands after that. The Supreme Court said, no, if you're asleep, and you've been asleep for two generations, why should the next generations reap the benefit. The transaction happened, the law of evidence says that a registered document more than thirty years old will be presumed correct, even if it was made through fraud, because whoever is asleep on their rights is asleep, but this absolutely doesn't mean that if certain circumstances exist, for example take this fifty-three-year case, if that person rises up fifty-three years later and says, my father's inheritance mutation was never even passed, ours wasn't passed either, but this property is still in our possession today, if the property still exists and is still in your great-grandfather's name, then you can indeed come after a hundred years and get the transaction done, but if that property has already been sold, and it was sold fifty years ago, and not just changed hands once but two, three, four times, whether it was sold through forged documents or fraud, then the courts say the law helps the vigilant, not those who are asleep. I hope I have told you about Section 12(2).