SANTOSH KUMARI Vs. ROHIT GULATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal brought under Sec. 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure assails the judgment and decree dtd. 7/4/2022, whereby the money recovery suit filed by the appellant against the respondent was dismissed. Despite service of notice, initially none appeared for respondent; thereafter across repeated adjournments, only once a counsel for respondent appeared but did not disclose his name and also did not file vakalatnama. I heard learned counsel for appellant and examined the digitized record of the trial court.

(2.) Parties are related to each other, in the sense that the respondent is son of brother of the appellant's husband and they are residing on different floors of same property; the appellant is residing at the first floor while the respondent is residing at the ground floor. The appellant filed suit for recovery of Rs.15,00,000.00 with pendentelite and future interest at the rate of 18% per annum and costs of the suit against the respondent, pleading as follows. In view of nature of relationship between the parties, the appellant had kept duplicate keys of her floor with the wife of the respondent, so as to enable her meet any eventuality whenever the appellant was abroad. On 03. 01.2018, when the appellant had gone to a party, her husband and daughter on coming back from the park in front of their house, they noticed bedsheets and mattress of beds turned over, which raised some suspicion. On checking their almirahs the appellant, her husband and their daughter found certain jewellery articles missing. Since there were no signs of forced opening of almirahs, they suspected the respondent, who on being confronted, confessed to having taken keys of the floor from his wife to steal the jewellery. The respondent further stated having mortgaged the said jewellery with his friend, namely Lucky Bhogal and also with Muthoot Finance. The respondent handed over the jewellery receipts issued by Muthoot Finance to husband of the appellant. On being warned of a police complaint, the respondent pleaded for one month time to get back the jewellery, for which husband of the appellant agreed in view of their relationship. On 4/1/2018 itself, the respondent executed in his own handwriting an admission and also assured that in case he failed to return the stolen jewellery within a month, legal action could be taken against him, including sale of his floor of residence. The exercise of the respondent admitting his wrong in writing was also videographed and converted into a compact disk (CD). Since the respondent failed to return the jewellery, the appellant's husband lodged a police complaint dtd. 5/5/2018, which was registered by PS Hazrat Nizamuddin as FIR No. 0114/2018. Towards cost of the stolen jewellery, the respondent handed over four cheques, out of which one was self cheque for Rs.5,00,000.00 while the remaining three cheques were in favour of the appellant for a sum of Rs.3,10,000.00, Rs.5,00,000.00 and Rs.1,90,000.00 dtd. 21/2/2018, 22/2/2018 and 23/2/2018 respectively.

(3.) The respondent on being served with summons of the suit filed a written statement, denying the plaint contents and pleaded that no incident as alleged occurred on 3/1/2018, so for more than four months, no complaint was lodged with the police. The respondent pleaded that the appellant had created false story after misusing the security cheques given by him against the jewellery received from the now deceased husband of the appellant, which jewellery had to be mortgaged to arrange money. The respondent further pleaded that the alleged written confession was fraudulently got written and signed from him by daughter of the appellant.