The case of Vijay A. Mittal v. Kulwant Rai stands as a landmark precedent in Indian civil procedural and Hindu personal law. It centres on a dispute concerning the specific performance of a sale agreement dated June 12, 1979, involving joint Hindu family (JHF) property. The primary legal issues addressed by the Supreme Court were the binding nature of a sale agreement executed by the karta of a JHF, the procedural validity of a suit where not all legal heirs of a deceased party were formally impleaded under Order XXII Rule 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC), and the legal consequences of a subsequent collusive transfer made with knowledge of a prior agreement. The Court upheld the authority of the karta to bind coparceners through such an agreement. Crucially, it held that the impleadment of every legal heir is not a mandatory procedural requirement if those already on record adequately and substantially represent the interests of the non-impleaded heirs. This ruling clarifies the intersection between substantive Hindu law and procedural mandates, mitigating the risk of abatement on mere technical grounds and reinforcing the principle of representative litigation. The judgment provides essential guidance on navigating procedural intricacies in representative suits and property disputes involving joint families, thereby ensuring that substantive justice is not defeated by procedural technicalities.