Second appeal limits under Section 100 CPC bar new pleas and factual reappreciation; equitable relief was unavailable.

A second appeal under Section 100 CPC can be entertained only when it involves a substantial question of law, and the High Court cannot reappreciate concurrent findings of fact as if hearing a first appeal. A new plea, including irrevocable licence under Section 60(b) of the Easements Act, cannot be raised for the first time in second appeal when it was absent from the pleadings and unsupported by evidence. The text also states that equitable relief on justice, equity and good conscience is unavailable where the statutory provision does not apply and the party lacks clean hands. On this reasoning, interference with concurrent findings was unsustainable and the decree for khas possession was restored.

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Issues: (i) whether the High Court could entertain and decide a second appeal without the appeal involving and formulating a substantial question of law under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908; (ii) whether the respondent could, for the first time in second appeal, invoke the plea of irrevocable licence under Section 60(b) of the Indian Easements Act, 1882 and claim protection on the basis of justice, equity and good conscience.

Issue (i): Maintainability of a second appeal after the 1976 amendment to Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 depended on the existence of a substantial question of law. The memorandum of appeal and the order admitting the second appeal did not identify such a question, and the High Court dealt with the matter as though it were a first appeal, interfering with concurrent findings of fact recorded by the courts below.

Conclusion: The second appeal was not properly entertained on the footing adopted by the High Court.

Issue (ii): A party cannot be permitted to set up a wholly new case in second appeal when the plea was neither raised in the pleadings nor supported by evidence before the trial court and the first appellate court. The respondent had consistently denied the very foundation of the plaintiff's case and had set up a false plea of oral agreement to sell. The statutory protection under Section 60(b) of the Indian Easements Act, 1882 could not be extended where the Act did not apply to Assam, and in any event equitable relief was unavailable to a party who had not come with clean hands. The principles of justice, equity and good conscience could not be used to confer a right inconsistent with the pleadings and the concurrent factual findings.

Conclusion: The plea of irrevocable licence was unavailable, and the respondent was not entitled to relief either under Section 60(b) or on equitable principles.

Final Conclusion: The interference by the High Court with the concurrent findings of fact was unsustainable, and the decree for khas possession in favour of the appellant stood restored.

Ratio Decidendi: In a second appeal, the High Court can interfere only on a substantial question of law, and a party cannot obtain relief on a new plea first raised at that stage or on equitable grounds when the plea is inconsistent with the pleadings and the party lacks clean hands.

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