VUPPALS LAKSHMI NARAISIMAHAM Vs. COSTU RAMAIAH GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was a Central Railway employee. He was the defendant in O.S. No. 35 of 1911 on the file of the Subordinate Judge's Court, Guntur. That suit was filed for recovery of a certain suit, of money alleged to be due from the defendant to the plaintiff on a promissory note. The suit was decreed on the basis of substituted service.

(2.) Prior to the year 1972 the defendant was posted at Nagpur and was living there with his wife. But after 1972 the defendant on transfer went to Poona and since then he had been working there. Particularly it appears that when the summons in O. S. No. 35 of 1977 had been first despatched to him, he was not at Nagpur. The aforementioned suit was filed by the plaintiff on the 24th February, 1977 when the defendant was working at Poona. Yet the plaintiff took out summons to the defendant's address at Nagpur. Not unsurprisingly summons were never returnee served on the defendant at Nagpur. In fact, nobody knew that happened to those summons. The plaintiff in those circumstances took no further steps and made no further attempts to serve the the defendant as required by the normal rule under the Civil Procedure Code. Instead, he applied to the Subordinate Judge's Court, Guntur, and obtained permission to serve the defendant by the extraordinary method of substituted service. The Subordinate Judge readily granted this application and permitted the plaintiff to serve the defendant by means of a publication inserted as an advertisement in 'The Hindu' of Madras dated 17th July, 1977. The Subordinate Judge, Guntur, treating the aforesaid notice published in 'The Hindu' as sufficient service on the defendant set him ex parte and decreed the suit on the untested evidence of the plaintiff. The defendant had applied in I. A. No. 452 of 1978 to set aside that ex part decree. But the learned Subordinate Judge dismissed that application on 17th December, 1979, of the ground that sufficient grounds were not made out to set aside the ex parte decree. The petitioner filed this revision against that order passed in I) A. No. 458 of 1974. But after hearing the parties and going through the record, I examined the validity of the decree passed by the Subordinate Judge's Court in O. S. No. 35 of 1977.

(3.) There was never any dispute between the parties that the defendant was living in Poona working as an employee of the Railways since the year 1972 nor was there any dispute between the parties that the defendant was not personally served either at Poona or at Nagpur. Yet the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Guntur. assumed jurisdiction to pass the ex pane money decree on the basis of substituted service.