PATI BANDA BHARADRAJULU Vs. PISIPATI LAKSHMINARAYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a civil revision petition against the decree of the Principal District Munsiff of Guntur dismissing the plaintiff's suit for arrears of rent and awarding to the defendant compensatory costs.

(2.) On the merits there is little that can be said. It is alleged that a reading of the judgment indicates that the learned District Munsiff approached the matter that had to be decided with some prejudice against the plaintiff. It is, of course, clear that the District Munsiff held a very strong opinion that the conduct of the plaintiff had been reprehensible; but that was an opinion that he was entitled to form after seeing the plaintiff and the defendant in the box, examining the evidence, and hearing the arguments.

(3.) Compensatory costs should be awarded with some caution; but a revisional Court is reluctant to interfere with the exercise of any discretion by the lower Court regarding costs, unless it has proceeded on some perverse, or at any rate, some wrong considerations, or has disregarded the ordinary rules of law relating to the awarding of costs. Before awarding compensatory costs under Section 35-A, Civil Procedure Code, the Court has to satisfy itself that the claim was false or vexatious to the knowledge of the plaintiff, that the interests of justice require compensatory costs to be awarded, and that the defendant had put forward his. objection that the suit was false or vexatious at the earliest opportunity. The defendant filed an application for compensatory costs only on the day before the order was delivered; and so it can be said that he put forward his objection at the earliest opportunity only if it can be read into his written statement. It is not there in express terms; but reading the written statement as a whole, there can be no doubt that the defendant did mean to say that the claim of the plaintiff was false and that he knew it to be false. That the claim was false to the knowledge of the plaintiff the lower Court clearly found. I am therefore unable to find any cause for interfering with the lower Court's order.