Vested right of appeal survives later law unless clearly taken away; amendment appeal also needed a certificate.

A right of appeal is governed by the law in force on the date of the proceeding, so an appeal from an order on an application to amend a judgment required the certificate mandated by the applicable ordinance; without that certificate, the appeal was incompetent. A vested right of appeal against a payment order accrued when that order was made and was not retrospectively extinguished by a later ordinance, because the transitory provision preserved pending proceedings but did not expressly or by necessary implication take away existing appellate rights. The amendment-related appeal failed, while the appeals from the earlier payment orders were maintainable.

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Issues: (i) Whether an appeal from an order on an application to amend a judgment or order required a certificate from the Single Judge under the governing law; (ii) Whether the later ordinance could retrospectively take away a vested right of appeal against a payment order passed before its commencement.

Issue (i): Whether an appeal from an order on an application to amend a judgment or order required a certificate from the Single Judge under the governing law.

Analysis: An application to amend or refuse to amend an order is an independent proceeding connected with the original order, and the right of appeal, if any, is governed by the law in force on the date of that proceeding. Under the applicable ordinance, an appeal from a Single Judge to a Division Bench was conditioned on certification that the case was fit for appeal.

Conclusion: The requirement of a certificate applied, and the appeal was not maintainable without it.

Issue (ii): Whether the later ordinance could retrospectively take away a vested right of appeal against a payment order passed before its commencement.

Analysis: A right of appeal accrued on the date of the payment order and could not be destroyed retrospectively unless the later enactment clearly so provided. The transitory provision only continued pending proceedings in the successor courts and preserved the jurisdiction needed to deal with them; it did not expressly or by necessary implication extinguish vested appellate rights.

Conclusion: The vested right of appeal was preserved, and the appeals from the payment orders were competent.

Final Conclusion: The appeal concerning the amendment petition failed for want of the required certificate, while the appeals arising from the earlier payment orders succeeded because the right of appeal had accrued before the later ordinance and was not taken away retrospectively.

Ratio Decidendi: A vested right of appeal is not taken away by a later enactment unless the statute expressly or by necessary implication provides for retrospective extinction, and an appealable proceeding is governed by the law in force on the date of that proceeding.

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