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FACTS
The plaintiff filed a suit at Gurgaon against the defendant seeking claim for recovery of damages . The defendant seeked return of the suit upon the grounds under Order VII Rule 10 and Reule 10A of the Code of Civil Procedure (C.PC.) The lower court ruled against the defendant and upon appeal, the Delhi High Court rejected the jurisdiction of the Gurgaon Court.
The plaintiff again filed an application under Order VII Rule 10 and 10A seeking transfer of the proceedings to the Court in Dwarka.. This petition was challenged before the High Court and a revision of the decision was sought on the ground that the trial must start de novo before the Dwarka Court. The High Court, however, dismissed this plea.
ISSUE
Whether after a plaint is returned in terms of Order VII Rule 10 and Rule 10A, Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), should the trial in the Court where the the plaint is now filed start de novo or from such stage from which the plaint was ordered to be returned ?
CONFLICTING JUDGEMENTS
Judgement in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. v. Modern Construction & Company
In this case it was held that when a Court orders return of the p;aint , the Court in which the plaint has to be presented has to proceed de novo , from the start and cannot take benefits of actions that may have taken place in the previous Court.
Judgement inJoginder Tuli v. S. L. Bhatia
In the Joginder Tuli case the suit had been filed with a lower valuation before the appropriate court. Therefater the plaint was amended and since its claim was with a hew higher valuation , that was higher than the pecuniary jurisdiction of the first court that is the Court of Sub-Judge later it was presented accordingly to the Court with the proper pecuniary jurisdiction .that is the Court of District Judge.Upon revision . the High Court held that the transfer of case to be legally valid and called for resumption of proceedings from the stage it was returned.
VIEW OF THE COURT IN INSTANT CASE
The Court was mainly concerned with jurisdictional issue in the present case and it expressed its alarm at the growing amount of litigation in the couuntry.
"Unless a party can prove that it has been actually prejudiced by some proceedings before the Court not having jurisdiction, it would not be in the larger interest to start the proceedings de novo"
The Supreme Court in order to decide and elucidate upon the substantive issues of law involved in the present case decided to refer the case to a larger bench headed by the Chief Justice of India .
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