OD-21 IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION ORIGINAL SIDE APOT/427/2023 WITH CS/269/2022 IA NO: GA-COM/1/2023, GA-COM/2/2025 SOMABRATA MANDAL VS FOX AND MANDAL AND ORS BEFORE: The Hon'ble JUSTICE SABYASACHI BHATTACHARYYA And The Hon’ble JUSTICE SUPRATIM BHATTACHARYA Date: 24thDecember, 2025. APPEARANCE: Mr. IndranilMunshi, Adv. …for the appellant. Mr. Soumya Ray Chowdhury, Adv. Mr. Debayan Sen, Adv. Mr. NiketOjha, Adv. …for the respondents. The Court:-The present appeal has been filed against an interlocutory order passed in a commercial suit, at the instance of the defendant in the suit. Upon query of Court, learned counsel for the appellant, in his usual fairness, submits that the defendant/appellant’s written statement could not be filed within the statutory limitation period. 2 Learned counsel for the respondents submits that the appellants are avoiding appearance in the suit, which is denied by learned counsel for the appellant. Be that as it may, within the restricted framework of a commercial suit, in the event the written statement is not filed within the outer stipulated time- limit in terms of the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended by the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, the defendant does not have a further defence in the suit. As such, since the defendants/ appellants have lost their right of defencein the main suit,no fruitful purpose would be served in entertaining the appeal, in view of the defence to the injunction application taken by the defendant/appellant being in tune with, and within the conspectus of,that taken in his written statement, which was never filed. In such view of the matter, APOT/427/2023 is disposed of without interfering with the impugned order, however, with the rider that the observations made in the order impugned in the appeal shall be treated to be tentative in so far as the final disposal of the suit is concerned and will not adversely prejudice the rights and contentions of either of the parties on meritsat the final hearing of the suit, which shall be taken up for hearing by the concernedcommercial court without being unduly influenced by such observations. Consequently, GA-COM/1/2023 is also disposed of. No orders as to costs. 3 Since an application under order XIII-A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 has already been filed by the plaintiffs/ respondents, the commercial court taking up the same shall decide it in accordance with law at the earliest. Urgent certified copy of thisjudgment shall be supplied to the parties subject to compliance with the necessary formalities. (SABYASACHI BHATTACHARYYA, J.) (SUPRATIM BHATTACHARYA, J) Arsad