LAKSHMI NARAIIMHAM Vs. RAMAIAH GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was a Central Railway employee. He was the defendant in O.S.No. 35 of 1977 on the file of the Subordinate Judge's Court, Guntur. That suit was filed for recovery of a certain sum of money alleged to be due from the defendant to the plaintiff on a promissory note. The suit was decreed on the basis of a substituted service and I am not concerned with the question whether the passing of that decree without personally serving the defendant was valid.

(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 24-2-1977 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 returned served on the defendant at Nagpur. In fact, nobody knew what happened to those summons. The plaintiff in those circumstances took no further steps and made no further attempts to serve the defendant as required by the normal rule under the Civil Procedure Code. Instead, he applied to the Subordinate Judge's Court, Guntur, and obtatned permission to serve the defendant by the extraordinary method of substituted service. The Subordinate Judge readily granted this application and permitted the plaintff to serve the defendant by means of a publication inserted as an advertisement in 'The Hindu' of Madras dated 17-7-1977. 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. 458 of 1978 to set aside that ex parte decree. But the learned Subordinate Judge dismissed that application on 17-12-1979 on 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/ 78. 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 (he Subordinate Judge, Guntur, assumed jurisdiction to pass the exparte money decree on the basis of substituted service,