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Nanda Dulal Pradhan & Anr. vs. Dibakar Pradhan & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 681Decided 11 Jul 2022
Civil Appeal No. 4151 of 2022
M.R. Shah · B.V. Nagarathna

Background

In a suit for declaration and title, the appellants (impleaded as defendants) sought repeated adjournments to file their written statement but never actually filed it or appeared, leading the trial court to pass an ex-parte judgment and decree against them in 2004. Their application to set aside that ex-parte decree was dismissed by the trial court but allowed on appeal by the First Appellate Court, which found sufficient cause and restored the suit for fresh evidence from both sides. The original plaintiff then challenged this restoration before the Orissa High Court, which set aside the First Appellate Court's order solely on the reasoning that reopening the case would be pointless since the defendants had never filed a written statement anyway.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had wrongly short-circuited the analysis: it never examined whether the First Appellate Court was correct in finding "sufficient cause" for setting aside the ex-parte decree, and instead assumed reopening the suit would be futile merely because no written statement existed. Relying on its earlier rulings in Sangram Singh v. Election Tribunal and Arjun Singh v. Mohindra Kumar, the Court clarified that on restoration of a suit after setting aside an ex-parte decree, defendants who never filed a written statement cannot be permitted to file one belatedly, but they can still participate in the proceedings and cross-examine witnesses, reopening is therefore not futile even without a written statement. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment, restored the First Appellate Court's order reviving the suit, but clarified that the appellants could not file a written statement at this stage, only participate and cross-examine.

Lesson Learnt

Missing the deadline to file a written statement doesn't permanently shut a defendant out of a case, even after an ex-parte decree is set aside, the defendant can still meaningfully participate by cross-examining witnesses and arguing the case on the evidence, so courts should not treat reopening a case as pointless just because no written statement was ever filed.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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