Sh Naresh Bhardwaj and Another vs Shri Jogesh Sethi and Others

V.K. Shali, J.—This is a petition u/s 24 CPC for transfer of Suit being C.S. No. 204/2004 (original Suit No. 2055/2000) titled Sumina (since deceased) represented through LRs vs. Naresh Bhardwaj & Others presently pending in the court of Sh. Sanjeev Aggarwal, the learned Additional District Judge-3, District Central, Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi to the High Court to be tried along with Civil Suit No. 2322/2012 titled Naresh Bhardwaj & Another Vs. Jogesh Sethi & Others pending in the original side of the Delhi High Court. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and have also gone through the record. The main contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the issues involved in both the suits are the same and the parties are also the same, therefore, in order to avoid any contradictory views being taken by two different courts, it will be expedient in case the suit which is pending in the court of learned Additional District Judge is withdrawn and transferred to the Delhi High Court to be tried along with the suit bearing No. 2322/2012 pending on the original side. The learned counsel has also relied upon number of judgments. These are Gupte Cardiac Care center and Hospital Vs. Olympic Pharma Care Pvt. Ltd., , Mrs. Meera Dhingra Vs. Mr. Deepak Kapoor and Others , Chitivalasa Jute Mills Vs. Jaypee Rewa Cement, , Prem Lala Nahata and Another Vs. Chandi Prasad Sikaria, and Nirmala Devi Vs. Arun Kumar Gupta and Others, .

I have considered the submissions and have also gone through the record. The suit bearing No. 204/2004 for declaration and permanent injunction was originally filed in the year 2000 by Sumina (since deceased) against Naresh Bhardwaj and Deepak Bhardwaj, the present petitioners. The case which was set up by the deceased plaintiff (Sumina) was that she was a member of one Rajdhani Cooperative House Building Society Ltd., respondent No. 3 herein and in that capacity, she was allotted a plot bearing No. 280 measuring 148.33 square yards by the said Society on which she had raised construction. Sub-lease in respect of the said plot of land was also duly registered with the concerned Registrar. The said plot of land was situated at larger chunk of land which included a parcel of land bearing khasra No. 29/20/2, Village Shakurpur, Delhi. The deceased plaintiff, Sumina, alleged that on 10.7.2000, the present petitioners, who were the defendants in her suit, had tried to use muscle power and collusively with the help of corrupt officers of the DDA tried to grab the land of the deceased plaintiff. The case which was set up by the present petitioners/defendants was that they had purchased the said land from the agriculturist and, therefore, they wanted to take the possession of the said parcel of land. Feeling threatened, the deceased plaintiff filed the aforesaid suit for declaration and permanent injunction restraining Naresh Bhardwaj, Deepak Bhardwaj and Mohinder Singh or their agent from interfering with the possession of the deceased/plaintiff so far as the plot of land in question is concerned and also seeking a declaration that the sale deed dated January, 1999 which was set up by the present petitioners, that is, Naresh Bhardwaj and Deepak Bhardwaj was null and void.

The suit is being contested and issues have already been framed and I have been given to understand that the statement of some witnesses in the said suit have also been recorded and there is also an application under Order XII Rule 6 CPC pending before the trial court with regard to the passing of judgment on the basis of purported admissions of the present petitioners. Now, it has been more than 12 years that the said suit is pending.

In the year 2012, Naresh Bhardwaj and Deepak Bhardwaj filed a suit against legal heirs of Sumina and all others concerned and necessary parties in the High Court of Delhi which is numbered as Suit No. 2322/2013 titled Naresh Bhardwaj and Another vs. Jogesh Sethi and Others which is presently stated to be pending on the original side. In this suit, the present petitioners have claimed possession from the Sumina (since deceased) and her legal heirs and it has been prayed by them that they are the owners of the land in question and they be given possession. It is with this suit that the suit which is filed by Sumina (since deceased), the present petitioners want the petition to be clubbed. The petitioners have relied upon the judgments cited above to contend that it would be expedient for the ends of justice to club both these suits in the High Court to be tried together. It has also been contended by the learned counsel that this will avoid the multiplicity of suits as well as passing of any conflicting orders.

I am not impressed by the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner for transfer of the suit pending in the court of learned Additional District Judge for the last more than 12 years to be transferred to the High Court of Delhi. The reasons for this is that the very basis of filing the present petition seems to be actuated with some ulterior motive. It is common knowledge that a suit which is pending before the court of learned Additional District Judge gets decided much faster and quicker as compared to the suit which is filed on the original side in the High Court. Admittedly, the deceased petitioner Sumina had filed a suit for injunction as well as for declaration that the sale deed set up by the present petitioners claiming ownership of the suit land was null and void way back in the year 2000 and she has also produced evidence, therefore, it was well within their knowledge for all these issues that if they had a genuine title to the property that the same had come under a cloud, they ought to have taken some action. If they wanted to retrieve the possession, they should have taken steps immediately. When the case has substantially advanced by way of recording of evidence and there are applications under Order XII Rule 6 pending adjudication before the learned Additional District Judge it is not difficult to foresee that the entire exercise is actuated to ensure that the said suit which is pending in the court of learned Additional District Judge does not result in early disposal of the matter at Tis Hazari Court. If the matter is transferred from the court of learned Additional District Judge, not only the disposal of the application under Order XII Rule 6 CPC will get delayed but also the disposal of the main suit itself is likely to take years together. The present petitioners have kept silent for almost 12 years nothing fully well with the issue which is directly and substantially in the case filed by the deceased petitioner is directly and substantially in the issue second suit filed by them, therefore, they could have simply kept their cause of action alive by filing the suit and requesting the court to adjourn sine die so that the issue is permitted to be decided expeditiously by the trial court in Sumina Devi''s case. The judgment which has been relied upon by the learned counsel for the appellant are not at all applicable to the facts of the present case. Two of the judgments in case titled M/s. Gupte Cardiac Care Centre & Hospital (supra) and Chitivalasa Jute Mills (supra) are the cases where the suits were pending before two different districts falling within the jurisdiction of two different High Courts that the court was constrained to pass an order for transferring of one of the cases to the jurisdiction of the one of the district judges court. So far as the judgment in Nirmala Devi''s case (supra) is concerned, that is a short judgment and cannot be treated as a precedent as the facts are not cleared from the suit. As regards the judgment passed in Meera Dhingra''s (supra) case by the single judge of this court is concerned, that was a suit which was sought to be clubbed along with the probate petition and the facts of that case are not akin to the facts of the present case where considerable time gap has elapsed between the two suits. I feel that these judgments are of no help to the petitioner on the contrary I am of the considered opinion that the entire exercise of this power u/s 24 would be a gross abuse of the process of law in case the prayer of the petitioner is granted. I, accordingly, feel that the petition filed by the petitioners is totally misconceived, motivated and mala fide and the same is dismissed.