Second appeal limits under Section 100 CPC bar reappreciation of evidence absent substantial questions of law.

Section 100 CPC confines a second appeal to substantial questions of law, and the High Court cannot reappreciate evidence or disturb concurrent findings of fact unless such questions are framed and decided. The document also notes that a transaction supported by evidence as nominal, or executed as security for money advanced, may be treated as ineffective despite later assertions of a genuine sale or exchange. Where possession, consideration, and surrounding circumstances consistently supported the lower courts' view, the decree declaring the sale deed ineffective and granting injunction was restored.

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Issues: (i) Whether the High Court, in second appeal under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, could reappreciate evidence and disturb concurrent findings of fact without framing substantial questions of law; (ii) whether the impugned sale deed was a nominal transaction executed as security for loan and not part of a genuine exchange, so as to sustain the decree for declaration and injunction in favour of the plaintiff.

Issue (i): Whether the High Court, in second appeal under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, could reappreciate evidence and disturb concurrent findings of fact without framing substantial questions of law.

Analysis: Section 100, as amended, confines the jurisdiction of the High Court in second appeal to substantial questions of law, which must be framed at admission and then decided. The concurrent findings of the trial court and first appellate court on possession, the nature of the transaction, and the alleged exchange were findings of fact based on evidence. In the absence of framed substantial questions of law, the High Court had no jurisdiction to reopen those findings or reassess the evidence as if it were a first appeal.

Conclusion: The High Court's interference with concurrent findings of fact was not permissible and is set aside.

Issue (ii): Whether the impugned sale deed was a nominal transaction executed as security for loan and not part of a genuine exchange, so as to sustain the decree for declaration and injunction in favour of the plaintiff.

Analysis: The evidence accepted by the courts below showed that the plea of oral exchange was inconsistent and improbable, that the respondent did not satisfactorily prove the alleged prior purchase from Tulsiram, and that the plaintiff remained in possession throughout. The surrounding circumstances, including the absence of consideration in the impugned deed and the conduct of the parties, supported the conclusion that the transaction was not a real sale or exchange but a nominal arrangement connected with security for money advanced. Those factual findings were well supported on record.

Conclusion: The transaction was rightly treated as nominal and the decree declaring the sale deed ineffective and granting injunction in favour of the plaintiff was restored.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, the High Court's judgment was overturned, and the decree of the trial court as modified in first appeal stood restored.

Ratio Decidendi: In a second appeal, concurrent findings of fact cannot be disturbed unless a substantial question of law is duly framed and decided, and a transaction shown by evidence to be nominal or executed as security does not become a genuine sale or exchange merely by later assertions to the contrary.

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