Review order vacates the original decree; appeal must target the operative decree, not disturb a final decree indirectly.

Allowing review vacates the original decree and substitutes a new operative decree. An appeal must be directed against the decree in force after review; a challenge confined to the reviewed decree cannot indirectly unsettle the original decree once it has been displaced and no competent appeal was filed against it. Where the High Court treated the review as wrongly entertained, it should have allowed the cross appeal and dismissed the respondent's appeal, because the original decree had already become final. The Supreme Court restored the decree of the court below and held that the appeal was entitled to succeed in favour of the appellant.

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Issues: Whether, after an order allowing review and passing a fresh decree, an appeal filed only against the reviewed decree could sustain the setting aside of the original decree, and whether the cross appeal should have been allowed.

Analysis: Allowing review has the effect of vacating the original decree. The decree passed on review is a new decree and supersedes the decree originally passed. Since no appeal was filed against the original decree before it was displaced by the review decree, the respondent's appeal could operate only against the decree made after review. Once the High Court held that the review had been wrongly entertained, it ought to have allowed the cross appeal and dismissed the appeal, because the original decree had become final and was not the subject of any competent appeal.

Conclusion: The appeal was entitled to succeed in favour of the appellant, and the decree of the court below was restored.

Ratio Decidendi: An order allowing review vacates the original decree, and the decree passed on review supersedes it; an appeal must therefore be directed against the operative decree in force, and a decree that has become final cannot be disturbed indirectly.

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