Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
Section 13(b) is the clause that makes Indian law different from English law: India will ask whether the foreign judgment was given on the merits. This case supplies the clearest instance of a judgment that was not.
Facts
A decree was passed without recording any evidence.
Held
A decree passed without recording any evidence is not a judgment on the merits, and conclusiveness fails under s. 13(b).
Reasoning
Step one — read the clause as an exception. Section 13 makes a foreign judgment conclusive as to any matter directly adjudicated upon between the same parties, except on the six listed grounds. Clause (b) is one of them, and the burden of bringing the case within it lies on the party resisting.
Step two — ask what on the merits requires. At a minimum, that the court had material before it and decided on that material. A decree recorded without any evidence is an order, not an adjudication of the dispute.
Step three — mark the English contrast. English law does not permit re-examination on the merits at all: a foreign judgment of a competent court cannot be reopened, and the court will not investigate the propriety of the foreign proceedings — Godard v. Gray, where even a demonstrable misconstruction of English law by a French court was no defence.
Exam use
It opens: Explain s. 13(b) of the Code of Civil Procedure — with two companion cases.
Give the second instance: in D.T. Kaymer v. P. Viswanathan the defendant entered appearance in England but refused to answer interrogatories, his defence was struck out and judgment was passed; the Privy Council held that the merits had not been investigated, so the judgment was not on the merits.
Then give the limit, which is where most marks are lost: Mallappa Yellappa v. Raghavendra holds that it is not open to the Indian court trying a suit on a foreign judgment to decide whether the foreign decision was right; its duty is merely to see that the foreign court applied its mind to the facts and to the law. Clause (b) is a threshold, not an appeal.
Place the clause in the scheme. Section 13 is a rule of conclusiveness, not of enforcement. Enforcement runs either through s. 44A — direct execution of a money decree of a superior court of a notified reciprocating territory, with execution to be refused if any s. 13 exception is made out — or, where the territory is not reciprocating, through a suit.
It does not decide what quantity of evidence suffices; the point is the absence of any.