SANJEEV BABBAR Vs. DEV PAPERS PVT LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) VIDE order dated 29. 2. 1996 learned Civil Judge, Senior Division, Rohtak, dismissed the application of the petitioner, under Order 15 Rule 5 of the Code of Civil Procedure, praying for striking off the defence of the defendant in the proceedings. While dismissing this application the learned Court held as under : "in the present case, defendant has offered to tender the rent and deposited the same and more-over on two dates of hearing the members of the bar have suspended the work due to heavy flood. There is no dispute over the fact that there was heavy flood in the month of September, 1995 in the City Rohtak and it was not possible for the litigants to come to the Court and for this reason Bar has suspended the work and naturally for the unavoidable circumstances the parties could not be allowed to suffer. Mr. R. P. Gupta, Adv. has also cited Kumar Medical Agencies v. Smt. Nirmal and Ors. , 1994 H. R. R. 41. According to this ruling the court may strike off the defence on account of non compliance with the provisions of Order 15 Rule 5 CPC but it does pot mean that it should be applied mechanically. In this ruling Hon'ble High Court has granted one month time to the petitioner to deposit the rent while in the case in hand, total amount has been paid though delayed as discussed earlier but that was due to heavy flood etc. " "in view of this, application under Order 15 Rule 5 CPC has no merits and the same is hereby dismissed. " It is this order of the learned trial Court which has been assailed in this revision.

(2.) THE revision as filed by the petitioner was barred by time. C. M. No. 13140 of 1997 was filed for condonation of delay of 67 days in filing the revision. Another application being C. M. No. 13141 of 1997 was filed for condonation of delay in re-filing the revision for 239 days. As the petition is barred by time, it is necessary for this Court to deal with this application (C. M. No. 13140 of 1997) without going into the merits of the case.

(3.) IN order to find out the sufficiency of the cause, it will be pertinent to note certain dates which can be collected from the various documents, which are available on record including the objection slips of the Registry of the High Court. The order was pronounced on 29. 2. 1996. Application for obtaining the certified copy of this order was made on 22. 3. 1996. The copy was ready on 3. 4. 1996. The revision (alleged to be revision petition) was filed on 1. 7. 1996. As no grounds for revision were filed, the Registry could not have treated the same as revision petition, it returned the papers on 3. 7. 1996. The grounds of revision were prepared and filed for the first time under the garb of re-filing on 3. 4. 1997. At that stage also application for condonation of delay and other necessary documents had not been filed. As such the registry again returned the revision on 1. 6. 1997. Thereafter it was re-filed on 7. 10. 1997 when the Registry again returned the same for want of affidavit in support of application for condonation of delay of delay. Thereafter it was finally re-filed on 28. 11. 1997.