Court No. - 30
Case :- MATTERS UNDER ARTICLE 227 No. - 4094 of 2018 Petitioner :- Lal Chandra Respondent :- District Judge, Sonbhadra And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Jitendra Kumar,Anurag Pandey Hon'ble Vivek Kumar Birla,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner.
Present petition has been filed for setting aside the order dated 1.9.2017 passed by Civil Judge (Senior Division) / F.T.C., Sonbhadra in Original Suit No. 385 of 2013 (Lal Chandra and another vs. Khattu) as well as order dated 16.4.2018 passed by District Judge, Sonbhadra in Civil Revision No. 37 of 2017.
By the impugned order dated 1.9.2017 the application to reject the written statement as having been filed after 90 days has been rejected. Revision filed against the aforesaid order has been dismissed vide order dated 16.4.2018.
Placing reliance on a judgment of Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Salem Advocate Bar Association, T.N. vs. Union of India 2005 (6) SCC 344 submission is that such time can be extended only under extraordinary circumstances and no such extraordinary circumstances are existing in the present case, therefore, the writtent statement submitted by the defendants is liable to be rejected.
I have considered the submissions and have perused the record.
On perusal of record I find that the summons of the case were served on the defendant respondent on 4.12.2013. He appeared in the case on 3.1.2014 and filed his written statement on 1.4.2014. The court below has noticed the fact that on 13.1.2014 the defendant was granted time to file written statement. From 13.1.2014 to 17.1.2014 the lawyers were abstaining from work and from 27.1.2014 to 14.4.2014 the court was vacant and thereafter on 29.4.2014 to 26.5.2014 the lawyers were abstaining from work and for this reason time to file written statement was extended and ultimately the same was filed on 1.7.2014 and it cannot be disputed that after 26.5.2014 the court must have been closed for summer vacation and even otherwise a date must have been fixed in July. The circumstances that have been taken care of and noticed by the trial court are sufficient indication of the fact that there was no deliberate mistake on the part of the defendant in filing written statement.
Under such circumstances, I do not find any legal infirmity or jurisdictional error in the order impugned herein.
Present petition is devoid of merits and is accordingly dismissed.
Order Date :- 30.5.2018 Lalit Shukla