Balaji Bakthavathsal (+919444448455) 30 March 2020

Adjournment of appeal suits

Dear Learned Lawyers,

There is a time limit set in our legal system for each and everything to be followed in the court, say for example

To file a suit in the court
To file a written statement
To set aside an ex-parte order,
To file a review / revision petition
To file an appeal petition etc. etc.,

But why no time limit specified to bring an end to a pending suit ? Why the court should allow a suit being dragged on for years together? If a person could not judge that the suit is being deliberately dragged on, taking the law permits as an excuse, then he cannot be the best judge. The court has been given inherent powers to arrive at a decision. If the judge is not using the powers, then he cannot be the best judge.

when an appellant who filed the appeal suit fails to turn up to the court to present his side of arguments, why the court should simply give him time for than four years ? Doesn’t the court has the power ? or doesn’t the judge have eyes to see the history of the case before he adjourns the case ? Why not an amendment be made in our CPC to dismiss the appeal suit which is pending for a year or more due to default of the appellant and prohibit him to go for further appeal / revision / review unless otherwise he comes up with acceptable justification to the court ?

I welcome your valuable views suggentions / comments on this.

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1 Replies

Meenakshi Raju Nair 08 June 2020

Hello Sir,

It is ture that in India, especially civil suits take years to end its proceedings, but on a close analysis it can be identified that one of the main reasons for this is the huge amounts of suits being filed everyday. Such a large number of cases will result in congestion and thus, leads to pendecy of the suits.

Such a delay, as understood by the Law Commission of India (Report 245) is due to infrastuctural lacking i.e, a smaller number of courts and judges in existance in comparison with the plethora of cases. The Supreme Court in the case of Imtiyaz Ahmad v. Province of U.P (AIR SC 2012 642) also expressed the need for making extra courts.

In addition to this, the system of Appeal irrespctive of the limitation period is also extremely complicated and lengthy in nature which leads to delay in proceedings.

With respect to adjournments as addressed by you, it is clear that it eads to delay. But according to Order XVII of the CPC, adjournmnets are to be granted in valid circumsatnces, that is beyond the control of the parties. Further as per the same provision adjounments can only be granted 3 times to the parties. The issues is in the proper application of this provision under the CPC.

Also, according to Order IX of the CPC deals with non- appearance of the Parties and such default may have the effect of the dismissal of the suit or ex- parte decision by courts.

It would be helpful to have more stringent application of the law for reducing the pendancy before the courts. It is really unfortunate, but in most cases if there was a valid adjournment also, due to the large number of cases the next possible availability of date would be 6 months down the lane which leads to further delay.

I hope this was helpful .