ORDER Umeshwar Pandey, J.
1. Heard learned Counsel for the revisionist.
2. This revision challenges the order dated 17.5.2006 wherein, the petitioner's application under Order IX, Rule 7. C.P.C. for recalling the order of the court below in the suit to proceed ex parte, has been rejected.
3. The plaintiff-respondent opposite parties had filed a suit for recovery of arrears of rent and ejectment. The summons were issued to the defendant No. 1, who is the applicant also. After the service of summons, when the defendants did not appear, the suit was directed to proceed ex parte and it was proceeding as such, while the petitioner's application for recalling the order for ex parte hearing was moved. The said application was resisted by the other side and the court below, after having concluded that the stage of ex parte hearing was over by that time, and the application was not maintainable under Order IX, Rule 7, C.P.C., it accordingly rejected the prayer.
4. The learned Counsel for the revisionist has tried to emphasize that by the time the defendant-applicant moved the application for recalling the order, the ex parte hearing was not complete and the prayer should not have been rejected by the court below. From a perusal of the papers filed on record, it is evident that vide order dated 22.12.2005, the court below had fixed 24.12.2005 as date for delivery of Judgment. It is admitted position to both the parties that till today no judgment in the case has been passed and the suit has also, in the meanwhile, been transferred from one Court to the other Court. Therefore, a mere mention of the fact in the order dated 22.12.2006, that the case was fixed for delivery of judgment becomes quite meaningless for the purposes of an application under Order IX, Rule 7, C.P.C. It appears now to be in the fitness of things that the defendant, who has put in appearance, should be given opportunity to contest the suit and the same should be decided after affording opportunity to him to contest the claim of the opposite party plaintiff. Thus, in such circumstances it would be Justifiable and proper that the trial court, instead of now delivering the ex parte Judgment in the case, should afford the opportunity of hearing to the applicant-revisionist strictly in accordance with law and should entertain his defence, if the same is permissible within the frame work of the procedure provided for the purposes.
5. With the aforesaid observation, the revision is hereby disposed of and the order dated 17.5.2006 is quashed.
6. It is further observed that the trial court will take up the case in right earnest for expeditious disposal and decide it within a period of maximum three months from the date of production of certified copy of this order before it.