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ISLAMABAD, Nov 20 (APP):The Supreme Court of Pakistan has clarified that if proceedings in an earlier suit are already underway, any subsequent suit filed on the same cause of action may be dismissed under Order II Rule 2 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC).
The Court held that recording of evidence is not mandatory for such a determination; instead, the pleadings of both suits are sufficient to establish whether they stem from the same underlying cause or from different ones.
A two-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Aamir Farooq and Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, announced the verdict in case CPLA 3055/2023. The dispute originated from a family disagreement over the property of the late Muhammad Sharif. The petitioners had first filed a suit seeking their mother’s share in the inheritance, and later instituted another suit challenging a family settlement deed and a surrender deed.
The Supreme Court noted that the purpose of Order II Rule 2 is to prevent multiple suits based on the same cause of action and to require a plaintiff to claim all available reliefs in a single, comprehensive suit. The Court further observed
that even if the first suit is still pending, the prohibition on filing a second suit remains fully applicable.
The apex court dismissed the petitioners’ appeal and upheld the Lahore High Court’s decision, which had rejected the second suit.