Appeals from Orders

In one line

An appeal lies from a decree as of right, but from an order only where the Code expressly says so, and section 104 with Order XLIII Rule 1 is the closed list of those orders.

Why orders are treated differently

A suit generates dozens of orders on the way to a decree: adjournments, discovery, framing of issues, amendments. If every one of them were appealable, no case would ever reach trial, because a determined litigant could appeal his way through years of interlocutory steps.

So the Code reverses the presumption. A decree, which decides rights, is appealable. An order, which is everything else, is not, unless it is one of the specified kinds where an immediate appeal is worth the delay it causes. Everything else waits and can be attacked in the appeal from the decree, which is what section 105 provides.

That design has a name worth using in an answer: the Code prefers one appeal at the end to many appeals along the way.

The list: section 104

Section 104(1): an appeal shall lie from the following orders, and save as otherwise expressly provided in the body of this Code or by any law for the time being in force, from no other orders:

(ff) an order under section 35A, compensatory costs for a false or vexatious claim or defence (ffa) an order under section 91 or section 92 refusing leave to institute a suit of the nature referred to in those sections (g) an order under section 95, compensation for obtaining an arrest, attachment or injunction on insufficient grounds (h) an order under any provision of the Code imposing a fine, or directing the arrest or detention in the civil prison of any person, except where the arrest or detention is in execution of a decree (i) any order made under rules from which an appeal is expressly allowed by rules

The proviso limits appeals under clause (ff): no appeal shall lie against an order for compensatory costs save on the ground that no order, or an order for the payment of a less amount, ought to have been made.

Section 104(2): no appeal shall lie from any order passed in appeal under this section. So there is no second appeal from an order. One appeal and no more.

Clause (i) is the important one, because it is the doorway to Order XLIII. The words "from which an appeal is expressly allowed by rules" mean that the real list of appealable interlocutory orders is in Order XLIII Rule 1.

Note also the exception in clause (h): an arrest or detention in execution of a decree is not appealable under this section, because execution has its own regime and section 47 questions produce appealable determinations of their own. See [Questions to be Determined by the Executing Court].