A bench that comprised of Justice AS Oka and Justice Ajay Rastogi was looking after a case in which the issue pertained to whether the Delhi High Court, as in its original civil jurisdiction, was competent enough to help execute a particular foreign decree under the Section 44A of the Civil Procedure Code.
At the beginning of the judgment, the Supreme Court had recalled a saying from the 19th century that the true difficulties of any litigant begin especially after obtaining the decree and the same situation as in the 19th century is still persistent even after a century, that is now.
The Court had also commented that the current case is a “live illustration” of the situation as the decree-holder was able to obtain a money decree of a foreign Court which was notified as a superior Court of a reciprocating territory as long ago as 7th February 2006, almost 16 years ago.
A division bench of the Delhi High Court had also held that it was not competent enough to execute the foreign decree under Section 44A as a court of original civil jurisdiction. Upon analysis of the various legal provisions, the Supreme Court had overruled this view and claimed that the High Court did have original jurisdiction and was competent to execute the foreign decree under Section 44A CPC provided that the pecuniary jurisdiction was met.
