MANGAL CHAND CHAUHAN Vs. RATAN LAL NAHATA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE facts giving rise to this revision lie within a narrow compass. A suit for malicious prosecution was filed by the petitioner which came to be fixed for hearing on 16-7-1979. On that day the plaintiff was present with six witnesses and he filed a petition to fix another date to record evidence of two witnesses mentioned in the petition. This prayer was rejected as would appear from the endorsement of the learned trial Court on the body of the petition itself. This has led the plaintiff to invoke the revisional jurisdiction of this Court.

(2.) SHRI Sarma has urged that though a matter relating to granting an adjournment is within the discretion of Court, the same has to be exercised judicially and by taking into consideration all relevant materials. In the present case his submission is that the learned trial Court disposed of the petition for adjournment by one word 'rejected' passed on the body of the petition and such a disposal cannot be regarded in accordance with law and it is a fit case where to set at naught the illegal exercise of jurisdiction of the learned trial Court, the impugned order should be quashed. It is urged that for one of the witnesses who was absent namely. Tilak Bora, steps for summoning him had been duly taken and as such the plaintiff was not at fault for his non-appearance. It is brought to my notice that the defendant had also prayed for time to which the learned trial Court had granted and so the progress of the suit would not have suffered by granting at least one further opportunity to the plaintiff.

(3.) IT would firstly be useful to deal with the last submission of Shri Choudhury. The meaning of the expression "any case which has been decided" appearing in Section 115 had been the subject matter of a number of decisions of the Supreme Court. The leading case on this is that of S.S. Khanna v. F.J. Dillon, AIR 1964 SC 497 where it was held that the expression 'case' is not limited in its import to the entirety of the matter in dispute in an action and it was a word of comprehensive import and includes a civil proceeding. After referring to this decision it was pointed out in Baldevdas v. Filmistan Distributors. AIR 1970 SC 406 that (at P. 410):