Lt Food Ltd. vs Sachdeva & Sons Rice Mills Ltd. & ...
2009 Latest Caselaw 4767 Del

     *          IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

                                                     Date of Reserve: November 11, 2009
                                                        Date of Order: November 23, 2009
+IA 14536 of 2009 in CS(OS) 653 of 2009
%                                                                   23.11.2009
      LT Foods Ltd.                                         ...Plaintiff
      Through: Mr. Hemant Singh with Mr. Sachin Gupta, Advocates

         Versus

         Sachdeva & Sons Rice Mills Ltd. & Ors.                ...Defendants
         Through : Ms. Navneet Moni and Mr. Dhurva Bhagat, Advocates

         JUSTICE SHIV NARAYAN DHINGRA

1.       Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes.

2.       To be referred to the reporter or not?                                    Yes.

3.       Whether judgment should be reported in Digest?                            Yes.

         ORDER

1. This application under Order 6 Rule 17 CPC preferred by defendants seeking

leave to amend the written statement reveals the casual and callous manner in which

advocate of defendants acted while filing WS and the casual manner in which

defendants themselves acted while filing WS and also shows fall in professional

standards.

2. The amendment of the written statement is sought on the ground that while filing

written statement in this suit, preliminary objections raised about the maintainability of

the suit were prepared by "cut-copy-paste" from preliminary objections raised in another

suit being CS(OS) No.612 of 2009. The preliminary objections raised by defendants are

now required to be amended because they were not related to the present suit and were

not in conformity with the defence raised by defendant no.1. Thus, defendants seek

leave to amend the written statement so as to change the preliminary objections no.1,2,

5,7,9,10 and 11. On similar ground, defendants want to change and substitute

paragraphs 2,4,7,8,10,14,15,16, 18,20,21,22,23, 24 and 28 of reply on merits. Deletion

of preliminary objection no.12 is sought on the ground that this objection was in respect

CS(OS) 653 of 2009 LT Foods Ltd. vs. Sachdeva & Sons Rice Mills Page 1 Of 4 of notice under Section 80 CPC and was irrelevant for the purpose of this suit. It is

further stated that even while filing reply on merits, "cut-copy-paste" method was adopted

and paragraphs 1 to 16 of the written statement containing reply on merits was required

to be amended for this reason. Defendants also want to add more paragraphs in the

preliminary objections taken in WS to the maintainability of the present suit on the

ground that the same got omitted because of preparation of the written statement by

"cut-copy-paste" method. The defendants have given several new preliminary objections,

which defendants want to add to the earlier preliminary objections and have given new

paragraphs 2,4,7,8,10,14,15,16,18,20,21,22,23,24 and 28 of the reply on merits which

they want to replace in place of existing paragraphs.

3. Order VI CPC gives guidelines to the parties as to how carefully the pleadings are

to be prepared and how important they are. It provides that the pleadings must be

accurate and contain only statement of facts in concise form. The dates, sums, numbers

expressed in figures should also be given in words for the sake of accuracy. Necessary

particulars are to be given by the parties in the pleadings in respect of alleged

misrepresentation, fraud, breach of trust etc. The parties are also supposed to satisfy the

conditions precedent or the purpose or the occurrence of an incident which in the eyes of

a party was necessary for its case wherever contract, facts, amounts, figures and dates

are denied, the denial must be expressed and specific and there should be no vague

denial. If reference is made to contents of any document which is material, the effect of

the document in brief must be set out. Similarly, the allegations of malice, fraudulent

intention and other state of mind must be set out with clarity.

4. Order 6 Rule 14 CPC provides for signing of the pleadings by the parties or by

duly authorized person. Rule 15 provides for verification of pleadings and the person

verifying has to satisfy by reference to the numbered paragraphs whether he verifies the

contents of his own knowledge or on the information. The person verifying has to furnish,

CS(OS) 653 of 2009 LT Foods Ltd. vs. Sachdeva & Sons Rice Mills Page 2 Of 4 in support of pleadings, an affidavit. All these and other provisions have been made in

Order VI so that pleadings are taken seriously by the parties and their advocates and

pleadings are not made in a casual and callous manner so as to waste precious time of

the Courts. Despite such detailed and specific provisions in Order VI CPC it is strange to

hear and entertain an application wherein an averment is made that written statement

was prepared by "cut-copy-paste" method from another written statement and it was

signed and verified by defendants as well as by counsel without even reading the

contents of the written statement and whether the averments made in the written

statement were relevant or not. I think under these circumstances, the Court should

invoke Order 6 Rule 16 CPC and strike out all such pleadings which were frivolous and

vexatious and which were made to delay trial of the suit by defendant instead of allowing

amendment. This also reflects gross misuse of the technology viz. computers.

5. The defendants' counsel, who must have charged hefty fee from his clients, was

not even bothered to take instructions from his clients and seeking parawise response to

the plaint and he had no time to ponder over as to what could be the legal objection. It

seems that defendants' counsel must have instructed one of his clerks to adopt "cut-

copy-paste" method and prepare a written statement without even reading the plaint and

asked his clients to sign the written statement so prepared. Surprisingly, the clients also

signed the written statement and verified the same parawise without even going through

the contents thereof. They also filed an affidavit that they had read the contents of

accompanying written statement and the facts stated therein were true and correct

according to their knowledge and nothing material has been concealed. In the wake of

this affidavit, I fail to understand how the present application under Order 6 Rule 17 CPC

seeking amendment of the written statement on the ground that written statement was

prepared adopting "cut-copy-paste" method and it does not contain relevant material

pertaining to the present suit and contained material pertaining to some other suit can be

entertained. The attitude of defendants' counsel seems to be most unwarranted and the

CS(OS) 653 of 2009 LT Foods Ltd. vs. Sachdeva & Sons Rice Mills Page 3 Of 4 one which considers the proceedings before the Court as trivial. I consider that this

attitude must be curbed and the manner in which written statements are being filed these

days containing prolix and unnecessary material adopting "cut-copy-paste" method, must

not be encouraged as this is going to have far-reaching consequences. Already the

situation has come that pleadings are not concise and because of use of computers, in

pleadings, apart from basic facts not only detailed legal prepositions and evidence,

irrelevant facts are being stated. This results into wastage of the time of the Court in

going through these unnecessary and lengthy pleadings while considering the various

applications and while framing issues.

6. Under Order VI Rule 16 CPC all irrelevant paragraphs of the WS mentioned by

the applicants /defendants are hereby deleted. Defendants are given liberty to file written

statement afresh, subject to cost of Rs. 1 lac, out of which Rs.50,000/- shall be paid by

defendant's counsel through banker's cheque in the Prime Minister's Relief Fund, drawn

out from his own account within 15 days from today and defendants shall pay

Rs.50,000/- for being so negligent as to the act on their counsel advice and sign such a

WS without reading and for filing false affidavit in the Court of having read the contents

of written statement before signing the same, out of which Rs.25,000/- be deposited in

Delhi High Court Bar Library Fund and Rs.25,000/- be paid to the plaintiff.

7. The application stands disposed of in above terms.

CS(OS) 653 of 2009

List on 15th January 2010.

November 23, 2009                                      SHIV NARAYAN DHINGRA J.
rd




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