An appeal cannot be dismissed for non-filing of the decree when accompanied by the judgment.

The petitioner had instituted Regular Civil Appeal No. 172 of 2019 before the 14th Additional District Judge, Vadodara, accompanied by a copy of the judgment but not the decree.

Subsequently, on 3 February 2026, the petitioner filed an application below Exhibit 27 seeking permission to produce the copy of the decree.

By order dated 18 July 2026, the Appellate Court rejected the application and dismissed the appeal as not maintainable on the ground that the decree had not been annexed with the memorandum of appeal, relying on Jagdish Bhargava v. Jawahar Bhargava .

The petitioner challenged that order under Article 227 of the Constitution, contending that the Appellate Court had adopted an excessively technical approach and had overlooked the amended provisions of the CPC.

Whether an appeal filed after the 2002 amendment to Order XLI Rule 1(1) of the CPC is maintainable when it is accompanied by a copy of the judgment but not the decree?

Whether the Appellate Court was justified in rejecting the petitioner’s subsequent request to place the copy of the decree on record and dismissing the appeal as not maintainable?

Whether procedural requirements concerning production of the decree could be applied in a hyper-technical manner where no prejudice was caused to the respondents?

The Court applied Order XLI Rule 1(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended with effect from 1 July 2002, which requires an appeal to be accompanied by a copy of the judgment rather than the decree.

It further relied on Order XX Rule 6A CPC, which permits an appeal to be preferred without filing a copy of the decree and treats the copy made available by the Court as sufficient for the purposes of Order XLI Rule 1 until the decree is drawn.

The pre-amendment decision in Jagdish Bhargava v. Jawahar Bhargava , AIR 1961 SC 832, was held inapplicable because it preceded the statutory amendment.

The Court also applied the principle in Sugandhi (Dead) by LRs v. P. Rajkumar , (2020) 10 SCC 706, that procedural rules are handmaids of justice and that courts should prefer substantial justice over technical objections where the procedural lapse causes no serious prejudice to the opposite party.

The Court found that the petitioner’s appeal, filed in 2019, complied with the applicable version of Order XLI Rule 1(1) because it was accompanied by the judgment.

The Appellate Court had erroneously relied on Jagdish Bhargava without considering the subsequent amendment substituting the requirement of a decree with that of a judgment.

In addition, Order XX Rule 6A expressly permitted an appeal to be filed without a copy of the decree.

Therefore, permitting the petitioner to subsequently place the decree on record would merely complete a procedural formality and would not prejudice the respondents.

Applying the principle that procedural technicalities should not defeat substantial justice, the High Court held that the Appellate Court’s decision to reject the application and terminate the appeal was legally unsustainable and perverse.

The petitioner’s application to produce the copy of the decree was allowed, and the Appellate Court was directed to restore the appeal to its original file and decide it on merits, uninfluenced by the High Court’s observations.

Since the order was passed without notice to the respondents, they were permitted to seek recall or modification within one month of receiving the order; the petitioner was directed to serve them with a copy forthwith.