Gobind Stone Crushing Company vs Ram Bilas

Iqbal Singh, J.—The petitionerCompany has preferred this revision petition against the order dated 26.11.1980 passed by the Senior Sub Judge, Gurdaspur (exercising the powers of Commissioner under the Workmen Compensation Act) (for short ''the Act'') whereby the application filed by the petitionerCompany for setting aside the exparte order dated 13.12.198 passed under the Act was dismissed.

The facts of the case are as under :

One Jugal Kishore is one of the registered partners of the petitionerfirm. Respondent Ram Bilas filed an application for compensation for suffering an injury during the course of his employment. An exparte order was passed on 13.12.1978 for payment of compensation to the respondent amounting to Rs. 14112/. It has been alleged that the petitionerfirm came to know about the ex parte order when it received notice regarding the execution of the exparte order on 20/21.5.1979 and upon further enquiring from the Court on 2.6.1979. The petitioner firm alleged that it was never served in the case and its absence was not intentional and, accordingly, application for setting aside the exparte order has filed on 14.6.1979.

The said application was resisted by respondent Ram Bilas on the ground that the same is barred by limitation that the order dated 13.12.1978 could be challenged by way of filing appeal and that the petitionerfirm was intentionally avoiding payment of the amount of compensation.

On the pleadings of the parties, the following issues besides that of relief were framed :

"1. Whether there are sufficient grounds for setting aside the exparte order ? OPA

Whether the application is within limitation ? OPA

Whether the application is not maintainable ? OPR

Senior SubJudge decided issue Nos. 1 and 2 against the petitionerfirm. Issue No. 3 was not pressed and was, accordingly, decided against the respondent. In view of its findings on issue Nos. 1 and 2, the trial Court dismissed the application.

The evidence of Process servers Krishan Gopal (R.W. 1) and Dharam Pal (R.W. 3) to the effect that the petitionerfirm refused to accept service on 16.3.1978 duly proves the service of summons. Proclamation was also issued thereafter by beat of drum and, therefore, it cannot be said that service is not complete. Accordingly, the exparte proceedings were rightly initiated against the petitionerfirm. The exparte proceedings continued upto 3.12.1978 when the exparte order was passed. According to the petitionerfirm, it came to know of the exparte order on 20/21.5.1979, but no reason has been put forth why it did not approach the Court immediately for setting aside the ex parte order. Prem Nath, partner of the petitionerfirm appeared as A.W. 1 and stated that he got knowledge of the exparte order on 24.5.1979. Therefore, the contention of the petitioner firm that it got knowledge of the ex parte order on 20/21.5.1979 is not correct. The finding of the trial Court that M/s Gobind Stone Crushing Company was served in this case but they did not appear in Court intentionally for the reasons best known to them, cannot, under the circumstances, be said to be wrong. Accordingly, the order whereby the petitionerfirm was proceed exparte cannot be said to be illegal.

Besides, the application for setting aside the exparte order was made much beyond the period of 30 days of passing of the order and, therefore, is barred by limitation. A party making an application for setting aside of an exparte order is required to prove sufficient cause for delay in making such an application, which the petitionerfirm has failed to do in the present case.

In view of the above facts, I do not find any merit in this revision petition and the same is hereby dismissed.