Delhi High Court - Orders
Dongguan Huali Industries Co. Ltd vs Anand Aggarwal And Ors on 9 October, 2023
$~30
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ CS(COMM) 229/2023
DONGGUAN HUALI INDUSTRIES CO. LTD.
..... Plaintiff
Through: Mr. Yogesh Goel (VC),
Advocate
versus
ANAND AGGARWAL AND ORS. ..... Defendant
Through: Mr. Akshit Awasthi (VC),
Advocate for D-1
CORAM:
JOINT REGISTRAR (JUDICIAL) Dr. AJAY
GULATI (DHJS)
ORDER
% 09.10.2023 I.A No. 17728/2023 under Order VIII Rule I r/w Section 151 CPC on behalf of defendant no. 2 to 4 for seeking condoning the delay of 85 days in filing the written statement.
Extensive arguments were addressed on the present IA on 6th October 2023. Ld. Counsel for def. no. 2 to 4/applicants has rested the entire responsibility of preparing the written statement on one of the employees i.e. Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma who is employed as a senior accountant with def. no. 4 and was unfortunately suffering from acute kidney failure since February 2023. As per the averments of the present application, documents relating back to almost 15 years i.e. since 2005 were to be collected and sorted for which Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma was the only competent person. It has been contended in the application that Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma was admitted in the hospital for treatment of his kidney ailment on 15 th May 2023 and remained admitted for over 2 months. He was finally This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 12/10/2023 at 12:09:22 discharged in the end of July 2023. Thereafter, he was on complete bed rest for 2 weeks which further resulted in delay in preparing the written statement. The written statement has eventually been filed on 8.9.2023, after a delay of 85 days beyond the 30 day statutory period permitted under the Commercial Courts Act. No medical documents were attached with the present IA. However, photocopies of certain medical documents have been shown to the Court and copies of the same have also been supplied to ld. counsel for the plaintiff.
The application has been strongly opposed by the plaintiff‟s counsel. Referring to the medical documents produced before the Court during the course of submissions, it has been submitted that the said documents reveal that Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma was admitted in a hospital in Jaipur for transplant of kidney on 19.9.2023 and was discharged on 29.9.2023. Rest of the documents only pertain to his routine/regular medical check- ups except one document which is of Max hospital Saket (Delhi) which also shows that he was admitted there only for 2 days for dialysis i.e. from 15th May 2023 till 17th May 2023. Ld. Counsel for the plaintiff has further stressed upon the fact that a detailed reply to the application filed by the plaintiff under order 39 rule 1 & 2 CPC has been filed on behalf of def. nos. 2-4 alongwith which, approx. 545 documents have been attached. The reply was filed on 10th July 2023. It has thus been argued that if such a detailed reply accompanied with large number of documents could be filed on 10th July 2023, there is simply no reason to contend that the preparation of the written statement was dependent on the health of Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma.
In rebuttal, ld. counsel for the defendant/applicants submitted that simply because a detailed reply to the application This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 12/10/2023 at 12:09:22 for interim injunction was filed, same would not mean that a written statement should have been filed alongwith or at any time immediately after that. It has been highlighted that filing of written statement has to be accompanied by a statement of truth and without going through all the relevant documents, such a statement cannot be filed and for which reason, the assistance of Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma was necessary. Further, it has been orally asserted that there is a typing error in para 8 of the present application where in it has been mentioned that Mr. Radhey Shyam remained admitted in the hospital for over 2 months. Ld. Counsel argued that what was meant to be mentioned was that Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma was "in and out of the hospital" for 2 months from May 15, 2023.
I have carefully considered the rival submissions. The submission of the applicant/ defs. to the effect that Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma was the only competent person in the combined organisation of def. no. 3 (which is a Limited Company) and def. no. 4 (which is a proprietorship) who could have prepared the written statement is contradicted by 2 significant aspects. There is merit in the submission of ld. counsel for the plaintiff to the effect that if the applicant/ defs. could file a detailed reply to the plaintiff‟s application under order 39 rule 1&2 of the CPC by 10th July 2023, there is no reason to substantiate the delay in filing written statement for a period of almost 2 months thereafter. In para 2 of the reply to the plaintiff‟s IA for interim injunction, it has been stated that def. no. 2 (who is Director of def. no. 3 and Proprietor of def. no. 4) is "fully aware of the facts of the case". Further, the same para also states that "invoices in possession of def. no. 2 are voluminous"
which essentially meant that def. no. 2 had all the documents This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 12/10/2023 at 12:09:23 with him as on 10th July 2023. Still further, in para 9 of the reply, it has been stated that documents/invoices since the year 2008 have been annexed as Document 2. Thus, the contention that it was Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma alone who could have sifted out the relevant invoices/documents since the year 2008 is evidently belied. Additionally, in reply to the IA for interim injunction, from para 20 onwards till para 45, every para of the plaint has been specifically referred to and its contents have either been denied or contradicted. It is thus patent that either def. no. 2 was aware of every minute detail relating to the present case as has been contended by him in para 2 of the reply or that he had competent assistance of some other officer/official of his company (def. no. 3) and proprietorship (def. no. 4) since as per the contents of the present application, Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma was in hospital for over 2 months, starting from 15 th May onwards. The submission of the ld. counsel for the def./applicants that there has been a typing error in para 8 of the application regarding medical admission/condition of Mr. Radhey Shyam is a clever afterthought, having been conceived only after it was pointed out by ld. counsel for the plaintiff that in the month of May 2023, Mr. Radhey Shyam remained admitted in Max Hospital, Saket (Delhi) for just 2 days. The specific averment in para 9 of the present IA regarding discharge of Mr. Radhey Shyam in the end of July 2023 again contradicts the oral assertion of the def. counsel regarding there being a typing error in para 8. With all due respect to the medical condition of Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma, the attempt by the applicant/defs. to portray him as the person having the sole competence to prepare the written statement has no merit. Even assuming the best in favour of the def./applicant i.e. that Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 12/10/2023 at 12:09:23 was not admitted in hospital for 2 months but was „in & out‟ of the hospital during that period, given the medical condition of Mr. Radhey Shyam in the backdrop of the medical documents that have been shown to the Court and the fact that on 19 th September 2023, he was admitted for a kidney transplant surgery, it is almost impossible to believe the assertion that a just a few days prior to his admission, in such a precarious and acute medical condition, he was helping out def. no. 2 in preparation of the written statement which has been filed on 8 th September 2023. Another aspect of the application deserves a highlight. It has been stated in the application that Mr. Radhey Shyam Sharma is an aged person. The medical documents shown to the Court however show his age to be all of 31 yrs. The defendant/applicants have patently not come out with truthful disclosure. In view of the foregoing discussion, the present IA is dismissed. The written statement of def. no. 2 to 4 is taken off the record.
IA stands disposed off.
CS(COMM) 229/2023 Written statements of defendant no. 1 and defendant nos. 2 to 4 are taken off the record.
Pleadings stand complete.
Matter is already listed before the Hon‟ble Court for 13.10.2023.
Put up before the Hon‟ble Court on the date already fixed i.e. 13.10.2023, for further directions.
AJAY GULATI - I (DHJS), JOINT REGISTRAR (JUDICIAL) OCTOBER 9, 2023/sk Click here to check corrigendum, if any This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 12/10/2023 at 12:09:24