ARISTO PRINTERS PVT. LTD. Vs. PURBANCHAL TRADE CENTRE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS application under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure read with Section 151 of the Code is against the judgment and order dated 9.9.91 passed by the learned Asstt. District Judge No. 2, Guwahati in Title Suit No. 32 of 1991. The case of the Petitioner is that the Petitioner is a Private Limited Company having its registered office at Bhiwadi in Rajasthan and head office at New Delhi. The Petitioner is engaged in the Business of printing of lottery tickets. The opp. party is a partnership firm having its head office at Calcutta and Branch Office at Delhi. The opp. party for organizing lottery for the Government of Assam placed orders with the Petitioner at Delhi for printing of lottery tickets with instruction to deliver the same to the opp. party in Delhi. The payment is made by the Plaintiff to the Defendant in Delhi, in the instant case, four cheques were issued by the Plaintiff drawn on the Bank of Rajasthan, Janpath, New Delhi. The four cheques in question were placed before the Bank at New Delhi which returned the cheques with remarks "referred to the drawner" amounting to dis -honour. In view of the aforesaid and for all purposes the entire cause of action if any relating to the dispute of non -payments and on dishonouring of cheques arose at New Delhi and the court at Guwahati has no territorial jurisdiction at all. No part of the cause of action wholly or in part arose within the jurisdiction of the Gauhati court. As such the suit field and entertained by the Gauhati Court is totally without jurisdiction and prayed that the proceeding relating to T.S. No. 32 of 1991 pending in the court of learned Assistant District judge No. 2 at Guwahati be stayed and the order dated 9.9.91 be set aside or quashed.

(2.) IN order to appreciate as to whether any cause of action wholly or in part has arisen within the jurisdiction of the Gauhati Court, the Court has to look into the allegations made in the plaint. In paragraph 14 of the plaint, the allegation is that the cause of action for the suit arose on the from 26.11.90, 6.12.90, 17.12.90, 26.12.90, 19.1.91, 31.1.91, 6.2.91, 23.5.91, 7.6.91 and on other various dates within the jurisdiction of this Hon'ble Court. By analysing the said paragraph the court finds that it only speaks about the date on which the cause of action is supposed to have arisen. It does not speak as to how the Guwahati courts have got the territorial jurisdiction. The only paragraph in the plaint which remotely speaks of Gauhati is paragraph 3 of the plaint, In paragraph 3 the Plaintiff has alleged that the Defendant used to print the lottery tickets on behalf of the Govt. of Assam being forwarded with the printing orders by the State Government and the Plaintiff being the organizing agent of the said lottery on delivery of the tickets at Guwahati used to make the payment of printing of the tickets. On the basis of the aforesaid allegation, the counsel for the Plaintiff had urged that the Plaintiff had made out a clear cut case of the jurisdiction of the Guwahati court inasmuch as the lottery tickets used to be delivered at Guwahati by the Defendant and thereafter payment of the tickets printing is to be made. I have carefully gone through the allegations in paragraph 3 and find no justification of the aforesaid submissions of the counsel for the Plaintiff in the said paragraph. It is nowhere alleged that the Defendant used to deliver the tickets to the Plaintiff at Guwahati nor it alleged that the payments for printing of the tickets used to be made at Guwahati nor it alleged that the State of Assam used to place orders on the Petitioner at Guwahati nor the said paragraphs alleges that the tickets requires for printing was despatched by the Plaintiff to the Defendant at Guwahati. Besides the aforesaid paragraphs, which I have analysed as above, I find no other allegation in the plaint which gives the cause of action wholly or in part to Guwahati court. The Privy Council in, ILR (1989) Cal 98 has held that the allegations in the plaint decides the forum, the jurisdiction does not depend upon the defence taken by the Defendants in the written statement The same principles have been reiterated by the Supreme Court in the judgment reported in : (1995) 2 SCC 559. On a reading of the plaint as a whole it is evident that the Plaintiff had filed the suit in Gauhati Court in order to harass the Defendant and the said action of the Plaintiff is highly mala fide and is an abuse of the process of the court.

(3.) FROM the pleadings, it appears that the Plaintiff has indulged in total misuse of power by bringing a suit at Guwahati Court though neither he nor the Defendant are residents of Guwahati nor any cause of action has arisen within the territorial jurisdiction of Guwahati. It was an act of judicial adventurism to quote the language of the Supreme Court in : (1994) 6 SCC 322/327. The suit if any should have been filed in Delhi where all the ingredients for conferring jurisdiction of the court exists.