ISLAMABAD: A two-member bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday expressed disappointment over the quality of legal assistance provided to it by advocates, in a case concerning a jurisdictional ambiguity over applications filed under Section 12(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC).

Section 12(2) empowers the court to recall a judgement, decree or order it passed, if it is alleged to have been obtained through fraud, misrepresentation or lack of jurisdiction.

“We are constrained to observe that the resolution of the present controversy required an examination of a long and consistent line of precedents of this court spanning more than three decades,” observed Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan, a member of the Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan-led bench.

“Unfortunately, these authorities were neither comprehensively cited nor adequately addressed by counsel appearing for the parties,” Justice Hassan regretted in the 12-page judgement that he authored.

Rules CPC’s Section 12(2) pleas lie before high courts after leave refusal

The SC was therefore, he added, constrained to undertake an independent examination of the relevant jurisprudence to determine the correct legal position.

“The bar occupies an indispensable place in the administration of justice, and the quality of judicial decision-making is inevitably enriched when the court receives comprehensive assistance founded upon a complete and relevant body of precedent, thereby strengthening the sound and orderly development of the law.”

The bench heard a batch of more than a dozen connected cases, converting civil petitions for leave to appeal into appeals and setting aside the Lahore High Court’s Bahawalpur bench judgement of May 15, 2024.

The case concerned whether, after the SC declines leave to appeal against a high court judgement, an application under Section 12(2) of the CPC seeking recall of the high court’s judgement lies before the high court or the SC.

The SC settled the jurisdictional ambiguity by holding that applications under Section 12(2) of the CPC seeking recall of judgements allegedly obtained through fraud should be filed before the high courts, even where the SC had earlier declined leave to appeal against those judgements.

The dispute arose from a civil suit concerning the validity of Mutation No 60. The Lahore High Court upheld the appellate court’s decision declaring the mutation void in a judgement dated Jan 18, 2018.

The SC subsequently dismissed petitions for leave to appeal against that judgement on Jan 23, 2023.

Thereafter, applicants who had not originally been impleaded as parties to the suit, but claimed an independent interest in the property, filed applications under Section 12(2) before the Lahore High Court seeking recall of its revisional judgement.

The high court declined jurisdiction on May 15, 2024, holding that since the SC had dismissed the leave petitions through a reasoned order, any application under Section 12(2) lay only before the apex court.

The judgement explained that the expression “the court which passed the judgement, decree or order” has repeatedly engaged the attention of the SC where proceedings before a high court culminated in a petition for leave to appeal before the apex court.

It noted that the SC had consistently sought to determine which forum had rendered the operative and final adjudication for the purposes of Section 12(2) of the CPC. The judgement further explained that the language of Section 12(2) itself provides an important indication, as the jurisdiction is conferred upon “the court which passed the judgement, decree or order”.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2026