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Surya Educational and Charitable Trust v. M/S Setia Builders Engineers and Contractors

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 508Decided 20 Sept 2021
Civil Appeal Nos. 5781-5783 of 2021
Justice Sanjiv Khanna · Justice Bela M. Trivedi

Background

The appellant trust had challenged a Division Bench order of the High Court that, among other things, had imposed a cost as a condition for condoning a delay in some underlying proceeding between the trust and the respondent builders/contractors. The order itself is very brief and does not describe the nature of the original dispute between the trust and the builders; it deals only with the High Court's costs order. With the consent of both sides, the Supreme Court took up the matter for final hearing rather than at the preliminary (leave) stage.

Decision Breakdown

The respondent's senior counsel himself requested that the Supreme Court modify the cost figure fixed by the High Court's Division Bench. The Court granted leave, reduced the cost payable from the amount fixed by the High Court to Rs. 3 lakh, and directed it be paid within three weeks, warning that if it was not paid in time, the related application for condonation of delay would be treated as dismissed. The appeals were accordingly "partly allowed" only to the extent of modifying the cost amount, and the Court left it open to the parties to ask the High Court to take up the underlying matter expeditiously.

Lesson Learnt

Where a court imposes a monetary cost as a condition for excusing a procedural delay, the amount itself can be negotiated and revised even at the Supreme Court stage with the consent of the parties, but the underlying dispute on the merits still has to go back and be decided by the court where it is actually pending.

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

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