Ramchandra Dagdu Sonavane Vs. Vithu Hira Mahar Decided by SC on 09.10.09

As regards whether there is valid adoption or not, that question pertains to the status and legal character of an individual, which falls within the purview of Section 34 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, and a suit for declaration before a civil court is maintainable.
Res-judicata and Code of Civil Procedure: It is well known that the doctrine of res-judicata is codified in Section 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Section 11 generally comes into play in relation to civil suits. But apart from the codified law, the doctrine of res-judicata or the principle of the res-judicata has been applied since long in various other kinds of proceedings and situations by courts in England, India and other countries. The rule of constructive resjudicata is engrafted in Explanation IV of Section 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure and in many other situations also Principles not only of direct res-judicata but of constructive res-judicata are also applied, if by any judgment or order any matter in issue has been directly and explicitly decided, the decision operates as res-judicata and bars the trial of an identical issue in a subsequent proceedings between the same parties. The Principle of res-judicata comes into play when by judgment and order a decision of a particular issue is implicit in it, that is, it must be deemed to have been necessarily decided by implications even then the Principle of res-judicata on that issue is directly applicable. When any matter which might and ought to have been made a ground of defence or attack in a former proceeding but was not so made, then such a matter in the eye of law, to avoid multiplicity of litigation and to bring about finality in it, is deemed to have been constructively in issue and, therefore, is taken as decided.
When the material issue has been tried and determined between the same parties in a proper suit by a competent court as to the status of one of them in relation to the other, it cannot be again tried in another suit between them. It is a settled law that in a suit for injunction when title is in issue, for the purpose of granting injunction the issue directly and substantially arises in that suit between the parties. When the same is put in issue in a later suit based on title between the same parties or their privies in a subsequent suit, the decree in injunction suit equally operates as a res judicata.
It is true that if an earlier judgment has to operate as res-judicata in the subsequent proceedings, then all the necessary facts including pleadings of the earlier litigation must be placed on record in the subsequent proceedings.