Central Administrative Tribunal - Lucknow
Vipin Kumar vs Union Of India on 16 July, 2019
Page 1 of 6
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL
LUCKNOW BENCH, LUCKNOW
Original Application No.332/00356/2019
This the 16th day of July, 2019
Hon'ble Ms. Jasmine Ahmed, Member - J
Hon'ble Mr. Devendra Chaudhry, Member - A
Vipin Kumar aged about 28 years son of Ram Bilas R/O Village
Pure Karari, H/O Raghunathpur, Bhadokhar, District Raibareli.
............ Applicant
By Advocate: Sri B.L. Bhartiya.
VERSUS
1. Union of India through the Secretary, Railway, Rail Bhawan,
New Delhi.
2. Chairman, Railway Board, Baroda House, New Delhi.
3. Member Secretary, Railway Recruitment Board, Channai,
Madras.
4. General Manager Northern Railway, Baroda House, New Delhi.
5. Digisional Rail Manager (D.R.M.), Agra Division, Agara.
............ Respondents
By Advocate: Ms. Prayagmati Gupta.
O R D E R (ORAL)
Hon'ble Mr. Devendra Chaudhry, Member - A The instant Original Application has been filed to claim relief with respect to re-valuation of the answer copy of the petitioner and award of correct marks thereof after due normalization.
2. The following respondents have been made in the OA:
"(1)Union of India through the Secretary, Railway, Rail Bhawan, New Delhi. (2) Chairman, Railway Board, Baroda House, New Delhi. (3) Member Secretary, Railway Recruitment Board, Channai, Madras. (4) General Manager Northern Railway, Baroda House, New Delhi. (5) Digisional Rail Manager (D.R.M.), Agra Division, Agara."
3. With respect to the above respondents, during the course of hearing at the time of admission stage on 10.07.2019, objection was raised by the Learned Respondent Counsel that memo of parties have not been correctly recorded/pleaded in the OA. The Ld Applicant Counsel accordingly sought two days time to do the needful correction, which was allowed. The OA was accordingly listed on Page 2 of 6 15.07.2019 and then again 16.07.2019. However, on 16.07.2019, the Learned Counsel for the Respondent again objected that memo of the parties have not yet been fully corrected, interalia, the correct addresses of the concerned Respondents have not been recorded. Thus, it was submitted by the Learned Counsel for the Respondent that w.r.t. Respondent no. 1, in the memo of parties it is presently recorded as Secretary, Railway, Rail Bhawan, New Delhi. It was submitted that there is no Secretary, Railway, Rail Bhawan, New Delhi. Similarly w.r.t. Respondent no. 2, it is recorded as Chairman, Railway Board, Baroda House, New Delhi. Here also the Learned Respondent Counsel objected that Chairman, Railway Board, Baroda House, New Delhi is wrong address and the Applicant needs to correct the same in the memo of parties. Again, the Respondent No. 3 is recorded as Member Secretary, Railway Recruitment Board, Chennai, Madras. That, this is also not a full address and when the Registry would issue notice to the Respondent no. 3 it is not likely to reach the expected Respondent because of the incomplete/ wrong address.
4. The Learned Counsel for the Respondents submits that even though the Applicant had been given time by the Tribunal vide date 10.07.2019, still the corrections have not been made. That, this would result in the Registry sending the copies of OA to the Respondents at wrong addresses which would result in mis-service resulting the mis-carriage of justice and the Respondents would not be able to file their Counter/pleadings because the copies of the OA would not reach them. It was further argued that this is in contravention of the Order 6, Rule 14 (A) of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC), which lays down requirement for address for service of notice. Accordingly, since even after the direction of the Court and concurrence on behalf of the Applicant by the Ld. Applicant Counsel, the corrections in the memo of the parties have not been made, hence, the OA would need to be dismissed/rejected for mis-joinder of the party/wrong address of the party as per law laid down under Order 1, Rule 9, 10, 10 (A) and Order 6, Rule 14 (A) of the CPC.
Page 3 of 65. We have heard the Learned Counsel for both the parties and carefully examined the material on record.
6. The Learned Counsel for the Applicant has submitted that as per his information the correct addresses on the memo of parties are recorded. The Tribunal also tried to point out during the course of arguments that there seems to be erroneous recording with regards to the correct addresses of the concerned Respondents. Even the spellings are wrong in certain places such as Respondent No. 5, it is printed as 'Digisional' or Agra, spelt as 'Agara', which may be minor error but after being pointed out would surely need correction by the applicant. However, during the course of argument, the Applicant Counsel was unable to agree to any further correction and the Ld. Respondent Counsel pleaded that as no corrections have been made by the Applicant side, hence, the OA needs to be dismissed at the admission stage under Order 1, Rule 9, 10, 10(A) and Order 6, Rule 14 (A) of Civil Procedure Code.
7. In order to examine the claim of the Applicant Counsel w.r.t. his assertion on the correctness of the memo of the parties, it would be useful to firstly extract the relevant portion of Order 6, Rule 14 (a), which is as below:
Rule 14A Order VI of Code of Civil Procedure "Address for service of notice"
(1) Every pleading, when filed by a party, shall be accompanied by a statement in the prescribed form, signed as provided in rule 14, regarding the address of the party. (2) Such address may, from time to time, be changed by lodging in Court a form duly filled up and stating the new address of the party and accompanied by a verified petition. (3) The address furnished in the statement made under sub-rule (1) shall be called the "registered address" of the party, and shall, until duly changed as aforesaid, be deemed to be the address of the party for the purpose of service of all processes in the suit or in any appeal from any decree or order therein made and for the purpose of execution, and shall hold good, subject as aforesaid, for a period of two years after the final determination of the cause or matter.
(4) Service of any process may be effected upon a party at his registered address in all respects as though such party resided thereat.
(5) Where the registered address of a party is discovered by the Court to be incomplete, false or fictitious, the Court may, either on its own motion, or on the application of any party, order -
(a) in the case where such registered address was furnished by a plaintiff, stay of the suit, or
(b) in the case where such registered address was furnished by a defendant, his defence Page 4 of 6 be struck out and he be placed in the same position as if he had not put up any defence. (6) Where a suit is stayed or a defence is struck out under sub-rule (5), the plaintiff or, as the case may be, the defendant may, after furnishing his true address, apply to the Court for an order to set aside the order of stay or, as the case may be, the order striking out the defence.
(7) The Court, if satisfied that the party was prevented by any sufficient cause from filing the true address at the proper time, shall set aside the order of stay or order striking out the defence, on such terms as to costs or otherwise as it thinks fit and shall appoint a day for proceeding with the suit or defence, as the case may be. (8) Nothing in this rule shall prevent the Court from directing the service of a process at any other address, if, for any reason, it thinks fit to do so.
A Plain reading of the above rules clearly points out that the address furnished in the statement be deemed to be the address of the party for the purpose of service of all processes in the suit or in any appeal from any decree or order therein made for the purpose of execution. It is further enjoined that the service of any process may be affected upon a party at his registered address in all respects as though such party resided at that address. Provision is also made for appropriate order by the Court where the address is discovered by the Court as incomplete.
8. It would be useful to recall few cases from the catena of judgments and rulings on the matter of proper memo of parties, including correct addresses, thus:
(i) In the case of Thomas Joseph v. Catholic Syrian Bank, the Hon'ble Kerala High Court vide its order dated 28.04.1998 held that:
"....6......when the Court ordered fresh notice in the correct address, the decree holder was duty bound to furnish correct address of the judgment debtors and notice ought to have been served in the correct address......"
".....7.....In the light of the direction of the Court to issue a fresh notice in the correct address, the decree holder was under an obligation to furnish fresh address of the appellant and to see that notice has been properly served....."
".....18.....therefore, it was the duty of the decree holder in this case to furnish the correct address of the judgment debtors when the court has ordered fresh notice to be taken on return of the original notice..."Page 5 of 6
(ii) In the matter of M/s Bhargavi Real Estates... v. Kolanu Janardhana Reddy and others, the Hon'ble Andhra High Court vide its order dated 04.07.2016 also discuss the matter in term of the Order 6, Rule 14(A) of CPC and has observed that "....4....From reading of the Order VI Rule 14A CPC supra, it is the duty of the plaintiff while filing the plaint to furnish the registered addresses of each of the defendants for purpose of service of all process in the suit with any change of address known from time to time so as to effect the service on the party respectively at the registered address for filing process to that address. In fact, Sub Rule 5 of Order VI Rule 14 A CPC even shows not only duty of the party from above but also duty of the Court that where the address is incomplete or false or fictitious, the court may either on its own motion or an application of any party where it is the plaintiff furnished the address to stay the suit and where the address by the defendants, to struck off his defence as it he did not put forth his defence and it is only after furnishing the true and correct address to enable the party to apply to the Court for an order to set aside the order of stay or order striking out the defence, that too on showing to the satisfaction of the Court of party was prevented by a sufficient cause from filing true address at the proper time, leave about the power of Court to direct service of process at any other source which it thinks fit from further reading of sub rules 6 to 8 of Order VI Rule 14 A CPC supra........."
Thus, it may be seen from the above rulings that the Plaintiff has to file correct addresses of the Respondents.
9. In the present case, as pointed out by the Learned Respondent Counsel, the addresses are incomplete and not correctly recorded despite repeated request to the Ld. Counsel for the Applicant as can be concluded from para 3,4 and 6 above. Since, without correct memo of the parties it would be injustice to proceed further in the O.A. and legally not possible to proceed with it as summons would go to wrong addresses, hence, we feel that it is mandatorily incumbent upon the Applicant to make all efforts to find out the correct address Page 6 of 6 in order to file correct memo of the parties w.r.t. the Respondents. Since, the correction has not been done after repeated date/ requests even so by the court. We cannot merely stay the proceedings till corrections are done as could have been possible or outright dismissed the OA for non-compliance of Court direction to correct the OA w.r.t. memo of parties as also vehemently argued by the Respondents. There is no course of action left except to reluctantly not admit the OA at this stage in its present form. However, full liberty is granted to the Applicant to correct the addresses and incorporate them in the memo of the parties correctly etc. The Applicant is at full liberty to file a fresh OA after due correction.
10. With the above observation, the OA is disposed of. No costs.
(Devendra Chaudhry) (Jasmine Ahmed)
Member (A) Member (J)
JNS