Bounden Duty Of Counsel To Ensure That Pleadings Filed Before Court Are Intelligible: Delhi High Court Expresses Word Of Caution

The Delhi High Court has observed that in cases where parties are represented by counsel, the said counsel have a bounden duty to ensure that pleadings, filed before a Court, are intelligible.

Giving a word of caution, Justice C Hari Shankar expressed displeasure over filing of an application of the petitioner under Order VII Rule 14 of Code of Civil Procedure after opining that the same did not contain a single sentence which was grammatically or syntactically correct.

"….worse, one has to strain one's imagination, considerably, to be able to fathom what the application seeks to state," the Court said.

It added "Such pleadings do little credit to Counsel, as they betoken a completely lackadaisical attitude, in filing pleadings before the Court. They also indicate, prima facie, lack of due respect to the Court and to judicial procedure."

Thus, the Court rejected a plea challenging an impugned order dated 24th February, 2022 wherein the Trial Court had rejected an application under Order VII Rule 14 filed by the petitioner, defendant in the civil suit, with costs of Rs. 5000.

The respondent had claimed to have supplied fabric to the petitioner during the period 4th August, 2017 to 20th June, 2018, against which an amount of Rs. 56.64,846 was alleged to be due and payable by the petitioner to the respondent.

The suit, therefore, sought a decree, in favour of the respondent and against the petitioner for the said amount alongwith pendente lite and future interest at 18% p.a. from the date of filing the suit till the realisation of the amount and costs.

The petitioner had filed a written statement and a counter claim in response to the suit of the respondents, accompanied by a statement of truth. This was followed by two affidavits of witnesses whose evidence the petitioner desired to lead, in support of the written statement as well as the counter claim.

Additionally, the petitioner also filed an application under Order VII Rule 14(3)1 of the CPC to take on record certain additional documents. The impugned order dismissed the aforesaid application under Order VII Rule 14(3) of the CPC, against which the petitioner had approached the High Court.

The Court was of the view that "Reasonable cause", within the meaning of Order XI Rule 1(10) of the CPC, as amended by the Commercial Courts Act, cannot extend to negligence in filing of documents before the Court.

"Reasonable cause", necessarily, must refer to a cause which was outside the control of the petitioner, and which prevented the petitioner from filing the concerned documents along with the written statement," it added.

Accordingly, the Court concluded that the decision of the Commercial Court not to allow the placing of additional documents by the petitioner, on record, cannot be faulted with.

"No error of jurisdiction or other error warranting supervisory correction, in exercise of Article 227 jurisdiction of this Court, can be said to exist," the Court added.

The plea was accordingly rejected.

Case Title: BELA CREATION PVT LTD v. ANUJ TEXTILES

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 425

Click Here To Read Order