NARAIN RAMCHANDRA BAKHLE Vs. GOVIND DATTA BAKHLE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners have taken exception to the order dated 19.08.2017 passed by the Court of the Civil Judge Junior Division, Ponda invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) Heard Shri P. Arolkar, learned Advocate for the petitioners who submitted that the respondents had filed the suit for partition claiming right to the property bearing survey nos.9/1 and 10/1 and the petitioners as the defendants had filed their written statement in defence specifically denying the case set up by the respondents including their locus standi to file their suit for partition claiming exclusive right to the properties bearing survey nos.9/1 and 10/1 and that the statement in defence was duly accompanied by the list of documents on which they were relying. The respondents had moved an application seeking interrogatories under Order XI Rule 4 of the Civil Procedure Code which were in the nature of fishing inquiries and when the burden was on the respondents to prove their case and not on the petitioners. The written synopsis were filed on behalf of the respondents and when the application seeking interrogatories should have been under Order XI Rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code. There was an error by the learned Trial Judge in allowing interrogatories as it did at the instance of the respondents and therefore the impugned order was liable to be quashed and set aside. He placed reliance in Tata Iron Steel Company Limited vs Rajarishi Exports (P) Limited, (1978) LawSuit(Ori) 10, Canara Bank vs. Steron Castings Industries, (1990) LawSuit(Del) 357 and Ali Kader Syud Hossain Ali vs. Gobind Dass, (1890) LawSuit(Cal) 85.

(3.) Shri Sudin Usgaonkar, learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the respondents submitted at the outset that it was for the petitioners to show how the order under challenge was perverse, without jurisdiction and/or that it had caused injustice to the petitioners. He referred to the plaint, the list of documents relied alongwith it apart from the written statement filed in defence by the petitioners which was vague and there was no basis for such a defence. The impugned order did not call for any interference in exercise of the writ jurisdiction and therefore the petition had to be dismissed. He placed reliance in M/s. Delhi Vanaspati Syndicate vs. K. C. Chawala, (1983) AIR(J & K) 65, P. Balan vs. Central Bank of India, Calicut, (2000) AIR Kerala 24, Dinesh Jagannath Khandelwal vs Kundanlal Perumal Chhabriya & Ors., (2010) 1 BCR 728 and Maria Margarida Sequeira Fernandes & Ors. vs. Erasmo Jack De Sequeira (Dead) through LRs, (2012) 5 SCC 370.