Anticipation Has Limits: Section 148a CPC And The Bar On Omnibus Caveats: A Doctrinal Study In Light Of Santosh Devi V. Union Territory Of Jammu And Kashmir
Jazib Ahmad Yatoo, Advocate High Court of J&K and Ladakh.
ABSTRACT
Section 148A of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 gives a person who claims a right to be heard a narrow but useful safeguard: it lets that person ensure that an application likely to be made, or already made, in a suit or proceeding is not decided in his absence. The provision is about an application and the right to be heard on it is not a device for blocking a suit from being filed or continued.
A caveat under Section 148A can operate before a suit is instituted, after it has been instituted, or at any point during a long-pending proceeding, so long as there is a genuine apprehension of an application to which the caveator claims a right to respond. It stands procedurally apart from the suit itself, yet it stays tethered to that suit or proceeding, because the application it anticipates must arise within, or be traceable to, that litigation.
This distinction has taken on fresh importance following the decision of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh in Santosh Devi v. Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (9 May 2025), and the Circular that followed it Circular No. 148/RJ/HCWJ/2025 dated 19 May 2025. The Court held that a caveat lodged against an unnamed “Public at Large” could not be entertained, since neither Section 148A CPC nor the High Court Rules, 1999 contemplate a caveat against an unnamed suitor or petitioner. This paper works through the statutory scheme, the nature and timing of a caveat, and why an omnibus caveat framed against the public at large sits outside that scheme.
Keywords: Caveat · Section 148A CPC · Public at Large · High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh · Santosh Devi · Civil Procedure
