Pemalatha and Another vs. Jayawardena and Others – sllr 2019 volume 1 page 255

In Pemalatha and Another v. Jayawardena and Others, the court considered whether the dismissal of a prior action for a declaration of title due to non-appearance under section 87 of the Civil Procedure Code constituted a bar to instituting a subsequent partition action for the same dispute. It was determined that although such a dismissal does not establish res judicata in the strict legal sense, it operates as a positive bar to relitigating the same cause, thereby preventing the re-filing of a similar claim under a different procedural avenue. The findings established that the subsequent partition action was rooted in identical factual circumstances and legal claims as the previous declaration of title action, amounting to an abuse of the partition law’s procedures. The decision relied up