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19. The plaintiff, by the above referred interrogatories, seeks to establish that Mr. Soumya Dutta and Eforexindia were acting as the agents for the defendant No.2 in other transactions with other entities also and also acted as agents for the defendant No.2 in the transaction with the plaintiff. It is, for this purpose, that the above referred interrogatories are sought to be administered.

20. The Court is not, at this stage, to examine as to what would be the impact of the answer of the interrogatories. The Court, at the stage of administration of interrogatories, has to only consider whether the answer to the interrogatories would have some bearings on the issues involved in the case and as to whether they relate to any matter in question to the suit. The law with regard to the interrogatories is well settled.

Plymouth Mutual Co-op. Society vs. Traders Publishing Association (1906) 1 LJ 415.) 1

22. Answers to the interrogatories would lead to reduction in the time taken by the court in recording cross examination and help in crystallizing the cross examination. The pleadings may not sufficiently disclose the nature of the parties case and in order to make good the deficiencies, this rule has been enacted. The court should not be hyper-technical at the stage of serving the interrogatories. The only defence to service of interrogatories can be when the same do not relate to the matter in question or are scandalous.2 A.K. Aggarwal vs. Shanti Devi 1996 RLR 60 Canara Bank vs. Rajiv Tyagi & Associates & Anr. (2010) 166 DLT 523

24. When the interrogatories proposed to be administered are examined in the light of the above referred legal propositions, it is clear that answer to the interrogatories may have the effect of shortening the litigation.

25. One of the questions in controversy is as to whether Mr. Soumya Dutta and Eforexindia were acting as the agents of the Plaintiff or of Defendant No. 2. The Plaintiff by the interrogatories seek to solicit inter alia admissions from defendant No. 2 that it had entered into transactions with Mr. Soumya Dutta and Eforexindia and they had facilitated/brokered several transactions for and on behalf of Defendant No. 2 and Defendant No. 2 and Mr. Soumya Dutta and Eforexindia had also entered into agreements.

28. In view of the above, the appeal is allowed to the extent that it seeks setting aside of order dated 25.10.2016, whereby the application of the Plaintiff (IA 11635/2016) under Order XI rule 1 CPC was dismissed. The application is allowed.

29. Defendant No.2 is directed to answer the interrogatories by filing an affidavit in terms of Order XI. The affidavit shall be filed within a period of four weeks from today.

30. Since, the appeal has been allowed and order dated 25.10.2016 has been set aside, the alternative prayer made by the plaintiff, seeking setting aside of order dated 23.09.2016, to the extent that the said order allowed IA 1872/2016, filed by the defendant No.2, becomes infructuous and is rejected as such.