A Bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose has referred the matter to the Larger Bench of the Supreme Court. The question that will be answered by the larger bench will be that if any plaint is returned under Order VII Rule 10 and 10A of Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, then the Court to where it is newly filed should try the suit from the beginning or from the stage where the plaint was ordered to be returned.
As there are contradicting views of the Supreme Court judgments on this issue, therefore the larger bench will now look upon this matter.
The brief facts of the case in which the matter got transferred to the larger Bench are:
The respondent-plaintiff, in this case, had filed a recovery suit against the petitioner-defendant in a court in Gurgaon. The petitioner thereafter filed an application under Order VII Rule 10 which deals with the returning of plaint to a court where the suit should have been instituted. This application was filed on the grounds that the Court in Gurgaon had no jurisdiction as no cause of action arose there. The petitioner did not reside in Gurgaon and the cause of action arose in Meerut, it was contended.
But the Court ruled against the petitioner and said that the question of jurisdiction will be framed separately as a preliminary issue.
In the meantime, the petitioner challenged the decision of the Trial Court in the High Court. The High Court held that the agreement between the parties conferred exclusive jurisdiction to the courts in Delhi and therefore, Gurgaon Court had no jurisdiction in the matter.
Therefore, an application under Order VII Rule 10 and 10A was filed again seeking transfer of the proceedings to the Court in Dwarka. This was challenged before the High Court and a revision of the decision was sought on the ground that the trial must start de novo before the Dwarka Court. The High Court, however, dismissed this plea.
Keeping in mind the burden of the Courts in India, the Supreme Court stated that there is no reason to start the suit from the beginning until and unless any of the parties did not suffer any prejudice from the decision of the previous Court.
The two matters which were contradicting to each other and which moved the matter to the larger bench are:
1. Joginder Tuli vs. S.L. Bhatia the matter was returned to the competent Court after the changing of the pecuniary jurisdiction. In this, the matter was the transferee Court continued the proceedings from the point at which the suit was transferred.
2. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. vs. Modern Construction and Company, the proceedings were stared from the beginning.
The Supreme Court noted that the primary difference between Joginder Tuli and other cases was that in Joginder Tuli even the first Court had jurisdiction at the time of institution of the suit whereas in other cases the competent jurisdiction was absent. Still, the bench feels that this judgment requires consideration from the larger bench.
Therefore, the matter was referred to a Larger Bench.