Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
It is the leading illustration of s. 13(b), and the better one to lead with, because the foreign court did something perfectly regular by its own rules and the judgment still failed the test.
Facts
The defendant entered appearance in England but did not answer interrogatories. His defence was struck out and judgment was passed against him.
Held
The merits had not been investigated, so the judgment was not a judgment on the merits within s. 13(b).
Reasoning
Step one — appearance is not adjudication. That the defendant appeared answers a different question — submission, and therefore competence under s. 13(a). It says nothing about whether the dispute was decided.
Step two — a judgment by default of pleading decides nothing about the claim. When a defence is struck out, the court gives judgment because there is no defence on the record, not because it has weighed the plaintiff's case against the defendant's.
Step three — note that regularity abroad is irrelevant. Striking out for failure to answer interrogatories may be entirely proper by the foreign court's procedure. Clause (b) asks a different question from clause (d): not whether the procedure was just, but whether the result is a decision on the merits.
Exam use
It opens: When is a foreign judgment not given on the merits? — and this course names it as the first case to cite on the point.
Build the three-case structure. Babu Nemi Chand v. Y.V. Rao: a decree passed without recording any evidence is not on the merits. This case: a judgment after the defence was struck out. Mallappa Yellappa v. Raghavendra: the limit — the Indian court is not to ask whether the foreign decision was right, only whether the foreign court applied its mind to the facts and the law.
State the English contrast in one line. England does not re-examine the merits at all, and Godard v. Gray enforces a judgment resting on a complete error of English law.
Watch the clause boundary in a problem. Facts of this kind can be pleaded under clause (b) as not on the merits, or under clause (d) as opposed to natural justice. The second is harder: a judgment is not against natural justice merely because it is manifestly wrong or because the foreign court admitted evidence inadmissible here, the substance of the requirement being audi alteram partem.
It does not decide that every default judgment fails clause (b); the reasoning is that the merits were not investigated, and that is what must be shown.