Punjab And Haryana High Court Orders Sensitization Of Trial Courts About Significance Of Timely Disposal Of Injunction Applications

The single judge bench of Arun Monga was hearing revision petition for seeking direction to the trail court to finally dispose of the application for interim injunction filed under Order 39 Rules 1 & 2 CPC.

It was the case of petitioner-defendant that the trial court after granting ex parte ad interim injunction on December 14, 2018 in favour of respondent-plaintiff adjourned the matter again and again and has not disposed of the application for ad interim injunction finally as required under Order 39 Rule 3A CPC. The petitioner contended that the same is against the said provisions as well as settled law.

After perusal of the records before it, the court observed that the petitioner filed their written statement on August 16, 2019 and since then case was thus pending for consideration and disposal of pending application under Order 39 Rules 1 & 2 CPC before the trial court.

The court noted:

“Except for the pandemic period (March 2020 to May 2021), this Court is unable to countenance the most lackadaisical manner in which Ld. Trial Court has proceeded in complete disregard of the duty cast upon it as per provisions under Order 39 Rule 3A CPC.”

The court further held that ordinarily Trial Court is under a legal obligation as per Rule 3A ibid to dispose of injunction application in the prescribed time frame in those cases where ex parte indulgence has been shown.

The court remarked:

“No doubt, due to heavy pendency of work in Courts, it may not sometimes be possible to finally dispose of the stay applications within a period of 30 days as envisaged, but at least the record should bear out and speak for itself that it was despite the endeavour of the Court that the application could not be heard or disposed of, for whatever reason it may be worth.”

The court observed that there is legal obligation on the trail court to record the reasons for non-disposal of the application within 30 days.

It further stated that the Trial Court should not in a mechanical manner use the principles of law and the procedure prescribed by rules to not perform its duty.

“There seems no justification to overlook as many as 51 adjournments granted most of which without recording any reason by simpliciter stating ‘Adjourned for consideration’”, the court said.

Allowing the revision petition, the court directed the trial court to dispose of pending application within a period of 4 weeks.

The court further directed the registry to convey the order to Presiding Officer of the Trial Court as well as to District Judges of the States of Punjab, Haryana and U.T. Chandigarh for sensitizing Presiding Officers of Trial Courts regarding the timely disposal of injunction applications.

Case Title: Jaspal Singh & Ors. v. M/s Omaxe Chandigarh Extension Developers Pvt. Ltd.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (PH) 39

Coram: Justice Arun Monga

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