Iqbaljit
Singh Vs. Pritam Kaur & Anr. [2007] Insc 1276 (13 December 2007)
Tarun
Chatterjee & Dalveer Bhandari
(Arising
out of SLP)No.19385 of 2006) O R D E R
Leave
granted.
This
appeal by special leave is directed against the order dated 25th of September,
2006 passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh in
C.M.No.9803 of 2006, by which the High Court had allowed an application filed
under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure seeking transfer of Civil Suit
No.498 of 2004 (titled as Pritam Kaur vs. Iqbaljit Singh & Anr.) pending in
the Court of Additional Civil Judge, (Senior Division), Faridabad, Haryana to
the Civil Court at Chandigarh or Panchkula. Feeling aggrieved by the aforesaid
order of the High Court, the present special leave petition has been filed in
respect of which leave has already been granted.
Having
heard the learned counsel for the parties and after going through the
application under Section 24 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the objections
filed therein and other materials on record, we are of the view that, in the
facts and circumstances of the case, the reasons offered for transfer at the
instance of the respondent could not be taken as a good ground for transferring
the suit from Faridabad to Chandigarh.
The
suit, being No. 9803 of 2006, has been filed by Smt. Pritam Kaur, the
respondent herein, before the Additional Court of the Civil Judge, (Senior
Division) at Faridabad, Haryana in the year 2004. In the
application for transfer, the ground for transferring the suit was that the
respondent, being an old lady, was not in a position to pursue the case at Faridabad
and, therefore, the suit be disposed of by the court at Chandigarh and not by
the Court at Faridabad. It is true that the plaintiff-respondent is a resident
of Chandigarh and aged about 75 years, even then,
we are of the view that no ground has been made out for transfer of the suit
from Faridabad to Chandigarh. It is not in dispute that the plaintiff-respondent herself
had instituted the suit for declaration and injunction in the Faridabad Court
and prosecuted the same for almost two years and only after the expiry of two
years, the application was filed seeking transfer. In our view, the order of
transfer passed by the High Court in the exercise of its power under Section 24
of the Code of Civil Procedure cannot be sustained. It was the
plaintiff-respondent, as noted herein above, who had filed the suit at Faridabad having jurisdiction to try the same
and who had prosecuted the suit for about two years and then asked for
transfer. Only because of the old age of the respondent, the suit could not
have been transferred to Chandigarh.
Accordingly,
we set aside the impugned order and direct the trial court at Faridabad to decide the suit, positively
within four months, without granting any unnecessary adjournment to either of
the parties. Parties are directed to co-operate and we fix 7th of January, 2008
for appearance of the parties before the trial court at Faridabad either in person or through their
counsel.
It
will be open to the parties to mention before us for further direction, if the
suit is not disposed of within the time specified herein above.
Accordingly,
the impugned order is set aside and the appeal is allowed to the extent
indicated above. There will be no order as to costs.
Back
