DEEPAK SAPRA Vs. ARAN GUPTA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner is aggrieved by the order dated 28th February, 2014 whereby the eviction petition of the

(2.) The impugned order was passed for the reason that despite service of summons in the prescribed form under Schedule-III of the DRC Act being served on the Petitioner by way of ordinary process on 17th January, 2014 and also by Registered Post no application for leave to defend was filed within the prescribed period. It is trite law as laid down in Prithpal Singh vs. Satpal Singh, 2010 2 SCC 15 that no extension of time can be granted in filing the leave to defend application.

(3.) The contention of the learned counsel for the Petitioner before this Court is that summons by ordinary process were not served on the Petitioner and hence the same was not a valid service. Therefore, the time for filing of leave to defend application had not expired. A perusal of the service report as annexed as Annexure-P3 to the petition would show that on 17th January, 2014 the Process Server reached the tenanted premises where he found one Sunil Kumar Sharma, who informed himself to be the servant of Deepak Sapra, the Petitioner herein and stated that Deepak Sapra came to the said premises off and on and thereafter on talking on phone with Deepak Sapra the summon and copy of the eviction petition was served on Sunil Kumar Sharma on behalf of Deepak Sapra. Thus there was service on the petitioner. In fact in the petition the petitioner states that he enquired from Sunil Kumar Sharma as to why he did not communicate about the service of summons to which he reluctantly told that he had forgotten and thus the leave to defend application could not be filed in time. In the petition there is no challenge whatsoever to the service of summons through the Registered AD Post.