HINDUSTAN ORGANIC CHEMICALS LTD. Vs. ICI INDIA LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Suit was filed without leave under Clause XII of the Letters Patent. The Defendants filed Notice of Motion No. 2208 of 2009 under Order 7, Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 ("CPC") saying that this Court had no jurisdiction and the plaint had to be rejected. On 19th Oct. 2015, the parties took an order before a learned Single Judge on the Defendants' Notice of Motion 'returning the plaint' to the Plaintiffs for filing in an appropriate Court. The order makes it clear that the Defendants themselves submitted before the learned Single Judge that the Defendants' submissions were for return of a plaint. The Plaintiffs, for their part, seem to have agreed to this; the order seems to have received the accord of both sides. Consequently the plaint came to be 'returned; for filing in an appropriate Court.

(2.) The relevant parts of the order read thus:

(3.) This could never have been done. Order 7, Rule 10 of the CPC, which deals with return of plaint, has no application at all to a Chartered High Court in exercise of its ordinary or extraordinary original civil jurisdiction. Order 49, Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure says in terms that Rule 10 and Rules 11(b) and 11(c) of Order 7 shall not apply to any Chartered High Court in the exercise of its ordinary or extraordinary original civil jurisdiction.