Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

6. The said application was filed under Section 148 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

7. The defendants-opposite parties contested the said application contending inter alia that the decree passed by the Court below being a conditional decree and the petitioner not having applied for extension of time before the expiry of the period of one month, the Court has become functus officio and, therefore, had no jurisdiction to extend the time.

8. Before the ld. Judge the petitioner as well as the lawyer's clerk gave their evidence. The ld. Judge on considering the said evidence came to the finding that when the judgment was delivered in open Court, then his lawyer must have been present and the petitioner must have constructive knowledge about the judgment as well as the condition regarding the deposit of the balance consideration money within one month from the date of the judgment, that his case that he came to know about it only on 29-1-89 was not a bona fide contention and that the Court having lost seisin of the case after the expiry of the period of one month the decree being a conditional decree, the Court, has become functus officio and has, therefore, no jurisdiction to extend the time.

8A. Being aggrieved, the petitioner has moved this Court in revision. It is submitted that the ld. trial Judge has refused to exercise jurisdiction illegally, that it is now well settled by the decision of the Supreme Court and followed by a Division Bench of our Court in the case of Tapan Kr. Chatterjee v. Kalyani Debi, , that the initial decree directing the defendant to execute a registered sale deed on the plaintiff depositing the balance consideration money, is not a conditional decree but in the nature of a preliminary decree, that the Court has power to extend the time even after the -- expiry of the period of one month as specified in the judgment of the trial Court and that the provision of Section 28 of the Specific Relief Act lends support to the view that the Court even after passing the decree in a suit for specific performance of contract for sale has the power to extend the time to pay the balance consideration money and, in the circumstances, the ld. Judge committed a grave error of jurisdiction by refusing to extend the time. It is also contended that the !d. Judge was not justified in taking the view that the petitioner had the constructive knowledge when the judgment was delivered as regards the contents of the judgment through his Advocate and that the evidence adduced by the petitioner as well as his witness being the Advocate's clerk, were sufficient before the ld. Judge to come to the conclusion that the petitioner could not know about the contents of the judgment prior to 29-1-89 when the Advocate on perusing the certified copy of the judgment intimated about his obligation to deposit the balance consideration money within one month of the judgment and that is why on the following day he got the application for extension of time prepared and filed by his Advocate.