Challenge is made to the order of the trial Court dated 13th April 2012 whereby the Court had denied permission to file written statement by re-opening the stage for such filing.
Learned advocate appearing for the petitioner has fervently argued taking this Court to the chronology of dates and events of pursuing the present suit as well as Civil Suit No. 64 of 2008. He further argued that as the parties had litigated for number of years, there will be a serious prejudice that will be caused to the present petitioner. Moreover, there is a direction of Hon'ble Supreme Court in petitions for Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No. 34881-34882 of 2010 dated 16th December 2011 where both the suits viz., Suit No. 244 of 1983 & Suit No. 64 of 2008 are directed to be tried together and disposed off within a period of six months.
This petition is preferred under Article 227 of the Constitution of India and as can be noted from the order impugned, the Court while rejecting such an application, has dealt with both the factual aspects as well as legal aspects to deny the request of re-opening of right to this petitioner. It has been particularly noted by the Court that the right of present petitioner of filing the written statement had been closed on 16th July 1984.It has also further noted that the request to stay the proceedings of Civil Suit No. 224 of 1983 was though prior in point of time, the same had been heard nearly after two and half years of the stage of closure of the right. At no point of time, there is any vigilance reflected for the Court to consider sympathetically this aspect. The Court also further noted that after the amendment and decision of the apex Court, which has been relied upon in case of Salem Advocates Bar Association-Tamil Nadu v. Union of India, reported in AIR 2005 SC 3353, long time has elapsed. It further noted that the issues have been cast in the month fo December 2007 and in June 2008, the evidence of the plaintiff has already begun and yet at no stage, the petitioner gave such an application for reopening of the stage. Moreover, considering the fact that both the suits, as per the directions of the Supreme Court dated 16th December 2011, have been directed to be tried and disposed of together within six months, by a detailed order of the Court denied the request.
There does not appear to be either any jurisdictional error nor any perversity in the order impugned, calling for interference by this Court. The parties appears to have been litigating on various issues and considering the fact that at every stage, the petitioner has been pursuing the legal remedy, it cannot plead on either ignorance of the order of closure or of any other potent reasons for this Court to interfere with the order impugned. Moreover, with regard to extraordinary hardships also, no ground could be pointed out. Both these suits since are to be tried, where more or less the nature of disputes are identical, the Court shall have to record the entire material in toto, and therefore also, there is no reason for this Court to intervene in the proceedings.
Resultantly, this writ petition fails and the same stands dismissed with no order as to costs.
{Ms.
Sonia Gokani, J.} Prakash* Top