Rajiv Kapur v Bimla Devi

Facts

• One party sought transfer of a pending proceeding to a different court, citing personal inconvenience or apprehension regarding the fairness of continuing in the original forum
• The question required the Court to assess whether the grounds advanced were sufficient to justify the exercise of the transfer power under Section 24 CPC

Issue

1. What standard governs the exercise of a court's discretionary power to transfer a suit or proceeding under Section 24 CPC, and what grounds are sufficient to justify a transfer.

Held

• The Supreme Court held that the power to transfer under Section 24 CPC is discretionary, to be exercised having regard to relevant factors including the balance of convenience to both parties, the need to avoid multiplicity of proceedings, and the overall interests of justice
• A transfer should not be granted routinely merely because a party expresses personal inconvenience or a bare apprehension of unfairness; there must be cogent, substantiated grounds demonstrating that continuing in the original forum would genuinely prejudice a fair trial or cause real hardship
• The Court balanced the competing interests of both parties before determining whether the threshold for transfer was met on the facts of the case

Ratio Decidendi

The discretionary power to transfer suits or proceedings under Section 24 CPC requires cogent and substantiated grounds relating to balance of convenience, avoidance of multiplicity, or genuine risk to fair adjudication; mere assertions of inconvenience or apprehension by a party, without more, do not justify exercise of this power.