Appeals from Subordinate Court decrees lie to the District Court, not the High Court.

The appellants challenged a preliminary judgment and decree dated 23 March 2026 in O.S. No. 157 of 2024, passed by the Subordinate Court, Bodinayakanur.

The Registry questioned whether an appeal from that court’s decree lay before the High Court or the District Court. The appellants asked the High Court to decide maintainability, relying on Section 13 of the Tamil Nadu City Civil Courts Act; the Registry placed the matter before the Court for that purpose.

Whether an appeal under Section 96 CPC from a decree of the Subordinate Court, Bodinayakanur, lay before the High Court or the District Court under Section 13A of the Tamil Nadu Civil Courts and the Chennai City Civil Court (Amendment) Act, 2003.

Whether the appeal could be returned with liberty to file it before the competent District Court, with protection against a delay-condonation requirement if refiled within the period directed.

Section 96 CPC provides for a first appeal to the court authorised to hear appeals from the trial court’s decision.

Section 13A of the Tamil Nadu Civil Courts and the Chennai City Civil Court (Amendment) Act, 2003 provides that appeals from decrees and orders of Subordinate Judges passed after the amendment commenced lie to the District Court, where an appeal is allowed by law. The Court also relied on the Madras High Court’s decision in Nanjathal v. Venkittamal, A.S. No. 436 of 2011, which held that, following Section 13A, an appeal from a Subordinate Court’s decree is to be filed before the District Court, not the High Court.

The decree under challenge was passed by the Subordinate Court, Bodinayakanur, and therefore fell within Section 13A’s provision for appeals to the District Court. Reading that provision with Section 96 CPC, the Court held that the proper appellate forum was the District Court, Theni.

It considered that entertaining the first appeal in the High Court would also deprive the litigants of the statutory forum of a second appeal.

It directed the Registry to return the material appeal records within 10 days and the appellants to file the appeal within four weeks of receiving them. If filed within that period, the District Judge was directed to take it on file, if otherwise in order, without requiring a petition to condone delay.