1 2025:CGHC:50528 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR MA No. 107 of 2015 Rajesh Soni S/o Shri Parasram Soni, Aged About 38 Years R/o Shop No. 450, 4th Floor Prograsive Point Complex Beside Fal Mandi Lalpur Raipur Tahsil And District Raipur Chhattisgarh........Plaintiff. ... Appellant. versus 1 - (Deleted) Kejabai (Dead) As Per Honble Court Order Dt. 11-06-2021. 2-(Deleted) Ahilyabai. 3 - Smt. Chanda Bai D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Ramkumar, Aged About 68 Years. 4 - Smt. Champa Bai D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Mohan Lal Yadu. 5 - Smt. Rekha D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Daolatram, Aged About 64 Years. 6 - Smt. Manju D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Manharan, Aged About 45 Years. 7 - Sukirat D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Krishan Kumar Aged About 60 Years. 8 - Smt. Hemlata D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Santram, Aged About 38 Years. 9 - Rukhmani D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Krishna Yadu, Aged About 30 AVINASH SHARMA Digitally signed by AVINASH SHARMA Date: 2025.10.10 16:14:50 +0530 2 Years. 10 - Lata D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Bisesharlal Yadu, Aged About 49 Years. 11 - Chamelibai D/o Rambagas and W/o Shri Rikhiram, Aged About 58 Years. All R/o Village Mujghan, Tahsil And District Raipur Chhattisgarh. 12 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through Collector Raipur Chhattisgarh. 13 - Shri Gaurishankar Gupta S/o Shri Sitaram Gupta, R/o In Front Of Glorious School Krishna Nagar, Boria Road, City Raipur, Tahsil And District Raipur Chhattisgarh ....................Defendants. ... Respondents. For Appellant : Shri Anand Mohan Tiwari, Advocate. For Respondent Nos.5,6,9 to 11 : Ms. Shristi Upadhyay, Advocate. For State/Respondent No.12 : Shri Dashrath Lal Prajapati, Panel Lawyer. (Hon’ble Shri Justice Deepak Kumar Tiwari ) Order On Board 10/10/2025 1. This Appeal is directed against the order dated 04.11.2015 passed by the District Judge, Raipur, District Raipur C.G. in Misc. Civil Application No.89 of 2014, whereby, application, Order 9 Rule 9 CPC, filed by the appellant/plaintiff for setting aside the dismissal of suit, has been rejected by the trial Court. 2. Necessary facts for adjudication of this Appeal are that appellant/plaintiff filed a civil suit for specific performance of the contract, for perpetual injunction and for declaration of sale deed dated 04.06.2013 pertaining 3 to the part of the subject land as null and void. Learned trial Court, after considering the prima facie case, granted temporary injunction on 23.01.2014 in favour of the appellant/plaintiff and restrained the respondents/defendant from creating third party interest on the subject property. On 21.04.2014, the case was listed for filing list of the witnesses. On 26.04.2014, the appellant/plaintiff has submitted an affidavit in terms of Order 18 Rule 4 CPC. On the date of hearing i.e. 26.05.2014, appellant/plaintiff was unable to appear before the trial Court due to certain illness and an application was filed under Order 17 Rule 1 CPC along with documents of his medical treatment but the said application was dismissed and evidence of the plaintiff was closed and the case was posted for the judgment on the same day and ultimately, the case of the plaintiff/appellant was dismissed. The appellant/plaintiff challenged the said order by filing WPC bearing No.1086/2014 which was dismissed as withdrawn on 11.06.2014 reserving liberty in favour of the appellant/plaintiff to file appeal in accordance with law. Thereafter, appellant/plaintiff preferred First Appeal bearing No.112/2014 before this high Court and the same was decided vide judgment dated 09.12.2014, wherein, upon accepting the submissions put forth by counsel for the appellant and in view of the principles laid down in the matter of Smt. Somari Bai vs. Sakuntala Thakur and others {2009 (4) MPHT 64 (CG)}, that order pertains to Clause (b) of Rule 3 of Order 17 of the Code. Remedy to the appellant was under Order 17 Rule 2 read with Order 9 of the Code and further, the appellant was permitted to 4 withdraw the said appeal with liberty to file appropriate application. Thereafter, appellant has filed this Appeal. 3. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the appellant/plaintiff has shown sufficient cause on the subject date of hearing and also filed prescription slip but the trial Court by holding that no sufficient cause has been shown, rejected the application for adjournment and the case of the plaintiff was dismissed. He further submits that in a catena of judgments, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held that sufficient cause is discretionary power with the Court, but such discretion has to be exercised on sound principles and not on mere technicalities. The approach of the Court in such matters should be to advance the cause of justice and not the cause of technicalities. A case, as far as possible, should be decided on merits. 4. On the other hand, learned counsel for Respondent Nos. 5, 6, 9 to 11 would oppose the aforesaid submission and would submit that as temporary injunction was granted in favour of the appellant/plaintiff, he was not appearing on the dates of hearing only with an intention to cause delay and various opportunities have already been given to the plaintiff/appellant. 5. I have heard learned counsel for the parties present and perused the record with utmost circumspection. 6. It is now well settled that a liberal approach should be adopted in dealing with an application for restoration of a suit which is dismissed for default. Though there is no straitjacket formula as to what is sufficient cause so as to grant relief to a party under Order 9 Rule 9 CPC and the 5 matter has been left to the wisdom, good sense and discretion of courts. The expression “sufficient cause”, therefore, be considered with pragmatism in justice oriented process approach rather than technical rigidity. Whether sufficient cause is made out or not would be dependent on the facts of each case and this expression should be construed liberally to advance substantial justice. 7. The Supreme Court in case of G.P. Srivastava v. R.K. Raizada and Others [(2000) 3 SCC 54], while construing the sufficient cause employed. Para -7 held as under: “7. Under Order 9 Rule 13 CPC an ex parte decree passed against a defendant can be set aside upon satisfaction of the Court that either the summons were not duly served upon the defendant or he was prevented by any “sufficient cause” from appearing when the suit was called on for hearing. Unless “sufficient cause” is shown for non-appearance of the defendant in the case on the date of hearing, the court has no power to set aside an ex parte decree. The words “was prevented by any sufficient cause from appearing” must be liberally construed to enable the court to do complete justice between the parties particularly when no negligence or inaction is imputable to the erring party. Sufficient cause for the purpose of Order 9 Rule 13 has to be construed as an elastic expression for which no hard and fast guidelines can be prescribed. The courts have a wide discretion in deciding the sufficient cause keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of each case. The “sufficient cause” for non-appearance refers to the date on which the absence was made a ground for proceeding ex parte and cannot be stretched to rely upon other circumstances anterior in time. If “sufficient cause” is made out for non-appearance of the defendant on the date fixed for hearing when ex parte proceedings were initiated against 6 him, he cannot be penalised for his previous negligence which had been overlooked and thereby condoned earlier. In a case where the defendant approaches the court immediately and within the statutory time specified, the discretion is normally exercised in his favour, provided the absence was not malafide or intentional. For the absence of a party in the case the other side can be compensated by adequate costs and the lis decided on merits.” 8. In the case of Raj Kishore Pandey v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others [(2009) 2 SCC 692), para 8 held as under: “8. In our opinion, whether the applicant has made out sufficient cause or not, in the application filed, the Court is required to look at all the facts pleaded in the application. No doubt, the consideration of the existence of sufficient cause is the discretionary power with the Court, but such discretion has to be exercised on sound principles and not on mere technicalities. The approach of the Court in such matters should be to advance the cause of justice and not the cause of technicalities. A case, as far as possible, should be decided on merits.” 9. In the case of Rafiq and Another v. Munshilal and Another [(1981) 2 SCC 788], the Supreme Court held that the obligation of the party is to select his advocate, brief him, pay the fees and trust the learned advocate to do the rest of the things. It is thus a duty of the lawyer to attend the proceedings. The Supreme Court held as under:- “3. The disturbing feature of the case is that under our present adversary legal system where the parties generally appear through their advocates, the obligation of the parties is to select his advocate, brief him, pay the fees demanded by him and then trust the learned Advocate to do the rest of the things. The party may be a villager 7 or may belong to a rural area and may have no knowledge of the court's procedure. After engaging a lawyer, the party may remain supremely confident that the lawyer will look after his interest. At the time of the hearing of the appeal, the personal appearance of the party is not only not required but hardly useful. Therefore, the party having done everything in his power to effectively participate in the proceedings can rest assured that he has neither to go to the High Court to inquire as to what is happening in the High Court with regard to his appeal nor is he to act as a watchdog of the advocate that the latter appears in the matter when it is listed. It is no part of his job.” 10.In light of the aforesaid principles laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court , if we examine the facts of the present case, the appellant/plaintiff has filed a civil suit in the year 2013 and from the record, it appears that he has diligently participated in the matter, even, he has filed plaintiff’s evidence by way of affidavit, therefore, there is no intention on the part of the appellant/plaintiff to cause any delay, in deliberate manner. Even on the date of hearing, the appellant/plaintiff has filed an application along with OPD slip dated 24.04.2014. In the order impugned, learned trial Court has also recorded that certain documents have been filed which show that, prior to the date of hearing, the appellant/plaintiff went for various medical tests like Renal function test and lipid profile and other laboratory tests for the proper diagnosis of himself and has also been examined on 14.05.2014 by one physician namely Dr. GB Gupta. Hence, this Court is of the view that not accepting the aforesaid documents to adjourn the matter is not just, as the appellant/plaintiff has shown sufficient cause for non-appearance on the subject date of hearing 8 and the trial Court has adopted a hyper technical approach in the instant matter. 11.For the foregoing, the impugned order dated 04.11.2015 is not sustainable and the same is accordingly set aside and the matter is remitted back to the trial Court with a direction that it shall make all endeavour to decide the civil suit, as the same being stale. 12.The civil suit is restored to its original number and the trial Court is directed to proceed further in accordance with law and decide the suit on its own merits. 13.Both the parties are directed to appear before the trial Court on 19 th November, 2025. 14.Accordingly, the Appeal is allowed. Sd/- (Deepak Kumar Tiwari) Judge Avinash