Consent Decree Would Not Serve As An Estoppel Where The Compromise Was Vitiated By Fraud, Misrepresentation, Or Mistake

Citation AIR 2021 SC 2821 AIROnline 2021 SC 268 Consent Decree Would Not Serve As An Estoppel Where The Compromise Was Vitiated By Fraud, Misrepresentation, Or Mistake: Supreme Court [Case: Compack Enterprises India (P) Ltd. v. Beant Singh; Citation: LL 2021 SC 93] A bench comprising Justices Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and Vineet Saran observed that a consent decree would not serve as an estoppel, where the compromise was vitiated by fraud, misrepresentation, or mistake. It was also observed that consent decrees are intended to create estoppels by judgment against the parties, thereby putting an end to further litigation between the parties and therefore it would be slow to unilaterally interfere in, modify, substitute or modulate the terms of a consent decree, unless it is done with the revised consent of all the parties thereto.