Delhi High Court: In an appeal filed by Defendants 1-4 under Chapter II Rule 5 of the Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018 challenging an order dated 31-05-2024 passed by the Joint Registrar dismissing the applications filed by the Defendants 1 and 4 seeking condonations of delay in filing the written statement, Subramonium Prasad, J., stated that if the parties were attempting to mediate and settle the dispute and were forced to file written statements then this would hamper the entire mediation process and would be detrimental to the spirit of mediation which ensured a just solution acceptable to all the parties to the dispute thereby achieving a win-win situation. Therefore, the Court was inclined to exclude the time period from 02-11-2022 to 24-01-2023 for calculating the limitation.
Background
The present suit was for partition of properties by metes and bounds for separate and independent possession of the share of the plaintiff. Summons was issued and the plaint was registered as a suit by this Court. On 02-11-2022, during the course of hearing, it was submitted by the plaintiff that the matter could be referred to mediation. This submission was not opposed by the defendants and accordingly, the matter was referred to Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre.
It was jointly submitted by the defendants that since the matter was now being referred to mediation, they might be allowed to file their written statement only after the mediation proceedings were completed. Further, vide order dated 02-11-2022, the request of the defendants for deferring the filing of the written statement was accepted by this Court.
The mediation proceedings failed and Defendants 1 and 4 filed their written statements on 09-04-2024 and 12-04-2023, respectively. Defendant 1 filed an application under Order VIII Rule 1 of CPC seeking condonation of delay of 74 days in filing the written statement.
The Joint Registrar vide order dated 31-05-2024 dismissed the applications for condonation of delay and observed that the written statements have been filed much beyond the period prescribed in the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 (‘CPC’) as well as Delhi High Court (Original Side) Rules, 2018.
The short question that arose for consideration was whether the clock for calculating the time period to file written statement would stop running when the parties were in mediation.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court stated that it was a settled law that the period of 120 days was sacrosanct and beyond that period written statement could not be filed and, therefore, the time could not be extended. The question in this case was as to whether the time when the parties were in mediation should be excluded.
The Court stated that if the parties were attempting to mediate and settle the dispute and were forced to file written statements then this would hamper the entire mediation process and would be detrimental to the spirit of mediation which ensured a just solution acceptable to all the parties to the dispute thereby achieving a win-win situation. The Court stated that forcing the parties to file a written statement or to complete the pleadings during the process of mediation would prevent the parties in freely communicating with each other which they had not been able to since the dispute started.
The Court referred to Telefonaktiebolaget L.M. Ericsson v. Lava International Ltd, 2015 SCC Online Del 13903 and Greaves Cotton Ltd. v. Newage Generators (P) Ltd., 2019 SCC OnLine Del 6556 and etc., observed that the legible copy of the paint was delivered to Defendants 1 and 4 on 03-10-2022. On 02-11-2022, this Court referred the parties to mediation, which failed on 24-01-2023. Defendant 1 had filed a written statement within the period of 120 days and Defendant 4 had also filed his written statement within 120 days, excluding the time spent in mediation. Therefore, the Court was inclined to exclude the time period from 02-11-2022 to 24-01-2023 for calculating the limitation.
Since, the time spent in mediation was excluded and since the written statement was filed within 120 days, the Court was inclined to accept the written statement filed by Defendants 1-4, subject to the payment of costs of Rs.5,000 to be deposited with “Armed Forces Battle Casualties Welfare Fund”.
The matter would next be listed before Joint Registrar on 03-03-2025, for further proceedings.
[Bharat Singh v. Karan Singh, CS(OS) 427 of 2022, decided on 03-02-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiff: Abhimanyu Mahajan, Abhimanyu Walia, Anubha Goyal, Tanishq Sirohi and Ishani Pillai, Advocates.
For the Defendants: Utsav Trivedi, Himanshu Sachdeva, Anudatt Dubey, Advocate; Chand Chopra and Neha Bhupathiraju Advocates; Saurav Agarwal, Sunanda Tulsyan, Anshuman Choudhary and Akhil Sachar, Advocates.
