Delhi High Court: In the petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution challenging the impugned order passed in Civil Suit pending before the Additional District Judge, Patiala House Courts, New Delhi (‘Trial Court’), wherein the application praying to record the certificate under Section 65-B of the Evidence Act, 1872 (‘IEA’) was dismissed, Shalinder Kaur, J., while setting aside the impugned order dated 26-07-2018, held that the filing of the certificate under Section 65-B IEA was a matter of procedure and by not allowing the same to be taken on record amounts to taking a hyper technical view which was against the settled preposition of law.
In the instant case, the petitioner was engaged in the business of supply and installation of glass. The respondent approached the petitioner in 2010 for placing work orders for installation of glass façade for various sites in the Commonwealth Game Village. The said work orders were placed on multiple dates and materials were duly supplied and installed at the sites as per the arrangement reached by the parties. Payments were made from time to time to the petitioner till 17-08-2011. However, a sum of Rs. 12,00,580/- was due against the respondent which remained unpaid despite raising repeated request for payment. The petitioner served a legal notice dated 25-04-2014 seeking payment of the aforesaid due amount.
In the absence of any fruitful outcome of the legal notice sent by the petitioner, the petitioner instituted the suit for recovery of Rs. 17,87,858/- along with interest, against the respondent before the Trial Court, which was stated to be at the stage of plaintiff’s evidence and plaintiff was under cross-examination. Later, on 13-09-2017, the petitioner moved an application under Section 151 of Civil Procedure Code, 1908, seeking to file on record a certificate under Section 65-B of IEA to support his computerized statement of account which he did not file during the time of filing the suit.
The Trial Court vide the impugned order dated 26-07-2018 dismissed the said application on the ground that cross examination had already been started.
The Court, after perusal of facts, stated that the certificate under Section 65B of the IEA, the terms of general procedure should have been filed by the petitioner along with the Statement of Accounts at the time of filing of the suit. However, the non-filing of the certificate under Section 65-B of the IEA at the relevant stage was a curable defect which could be removed by allowing to place the said certificate subsequently on record.
The Court then set aside the impugned order of 26-07-2018 and further permitted the petitioner to place on record the certificate under Section 65-B of the IEA with respect to the statement of accounts in accordance with law, subject to cost of Rs. 15,000/- to be paid to the respondent on the next date of hearing fixed before the Trial Court.
[Ram Kishan v. Emaar MGF Construction (P) Ltd., 2024 SCC OnLine Del 4443, decided on: 28-06-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For Petitioner: Prasouk Jain, Rabita Thakur and Anurag Sharma, Advocates
For Respondent: Arjun Jain and Rohit Mehla, Advocates.
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