Delhi High Court
Saroj Mehta & Ors vs Chand Bair & Anr on 17 February, 2012
Author: Indermeet Kaur
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
% Date of Judgment: 17.02.2012
+ CM(M) 1507/2009 & CM No. 18560/2009
SAROJ MEHTA & ORS ..... Petitioners
Through Mr. V.K. Rao, Sr. Advocate with
Ms. Ekta Kalra, Adv.
versus
CHAND BAIR & ANR ..... Respondents
Through Mr. Satish Sahai, Adv.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE INDERMEET KAUR
INDERMEET KAUR, J. (Oral)
1 Order impugned before this Court is the order dated 30.11.2009
whereby the first appellate Court had endorsed the finding of the Civil
Judge dated 03.07.2008 wherein the application filed by the defendant
under Order 11 Rule 4 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil
Procedure (hereinafter referred to as the 'Code') had been dismissed.
This was in an appeal filed before the RCT under Section 38 of the
Delhi Rent Control Act (DRCA).
2 Record shows that an eviction petition has been filed by the
landlord against his tenant on the ground of Section 14 (1)(d) of the
DRCA. Evidence of the landlord was completed on 29.04.2002 and
thereafter the matter was fixed for the evidence of the respondent. On
21.08.2002, the affidavit by way of evidence of the respondent had been
filed; a document (the document in dispute) was exhibited as Ex. RW-
1/2. This document is a letter dated 24.04.1984 purported to have been
returned by the landlord Jinesh Prasad Backliwal to his tenant R.K.
Mehra. Record shows and it is an admitted position that this document
had been exhibited as Ex. RW-1/2 but on 20.11.2002 a categorical
statement had been made by the counsel for the tenant Mr. Anupam
Srivastava that he does not wish to exhibit these four documents
Ex.RW-1/1 to Ex. RW-1/4 which included the document Ex.RW-1/4. At
the request of counsel for the tenant, (which is an admitted fact) this
document dated 24.04.1984 was accordingly ordered to be de-exhibited.
In February, 2003, present application under Order 11 Rule 4 of the
Code had been filed. This is an application by virtue of which the tenant
had sought to put certain interrogatories to the landlord; they related to
the aforenoted letter dated 24.04.1984. Perusal of this application shows
that is it completely silent as to what is the relevancy of interrogatories
sought to be put to the landlord; moreover the submission now
vehemently urged by learned senior counsel for the petitioner that the
disputed document (Ex. RW-1/2) was de-exhibited only for the reason
that a photocopy of the said document was available and the original
was not on record is not substantiated from the record. The record
nowhere shows that this document Ex. RW-1/2 was de-exhibited only
for the reason that the original was not on record. Be that as it may,
there was a clear and categorical statement made by the counsel for the
respondent on 20.11.2002 that he does not wish to prove this document
in evidence. Matter was thereafter listed for final arguments.
3 Both the courts below have correctly appreciated that the whole
purpose and import of Order XI of the Code is to cut short a litigation
and interrogatories are permitted to be served by one party to the other
party in order that information can be elicited from these questionnaires
which are given to the other party; purport being to save expenses and to
enable one party to obtain information from the other party which are
related to the matter in dispute. That stage was admittedly over as the
matter was ripe for final argument when this application was filed. That
apart this application was wholly silent as to what was the relevancy of
interrogatories to the matter in dispute; this is also a serious lacuna.
4 The submission of the learned counsel for the respondent is that
one way or the other, the tenant is trying to delay the proceedings and
this application has been hanging fire for almost 9 years.
5 In this background, the impugned order rejecting the application
of the petitioner in no manner suffers from any infirmity. Petition is
without any merit.
6 Dismissed.
INDERMEET KAUR, J
FEBRUARY 17, 2012
A
