The Delhi High Court ruled that adjournments and pass overs are discretionary courtesies extended by the court and cannot be used to delay proceedings or make the opposite party suffer. The court dismissed a 2006 civil suit petition, imposing a Rs 10,000 cost on the petitioner.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court recently emphasized that adjournments and pass overs are mere courtesies extended by courts to accommodate advocates and cannot be used to make the other side suffer, in its judgment in M/s EC Constructions P Ltd Vs Neeraj Zutshi And Anr.
The case arose from a petition challenging a trial court’s decision to close the plaintiff’s right to further cross-examine a defence witness in a 2006 civil suit.
The trial court had taken this step because the petitioner had failed to pay the cost imposed for earlier adjournments.
Justice Girish Kathpalia, hearing the matter, rejected the petitioner’s counsel’s argument that he had only requested a pass over until 2:30 pm and not an adjournment.
The court observed that initially, the adjournment request had been made citing the illness of the main counsel.
However, when medical documents were requested, the proxy counsel explained that the main counsel was unavailable due to some family exigency.
The bench remarked,
“To say the least, such falsehood coming from a counsel before the trial court as well as this court is deprecated,”
The High Court noted that on almost every date, either an adjournment or pass over had been requested on behalf of the petitioner. The court pointed out,
“It appears that the counsel for petitioner is under a mistaken impression that pass overs are matter of right of the counsel.”
The bench clarified,
“That is not so. Adjournments and pass over are courtesies extended by the court to accommodate the counsel. But that cannot be allowed to make the opposite side suffer. It is for the counsel to maintain their diary so that the other side may not suffer.”
Since the petitioner had neither paid the Rs 5,000 cost imposed by the trial court for an earlier adjournment nor filed any application seeking its waiver, the Delhi High Court upheld the trial court’s decision to close further cross-examination of the witness.
The court further added that the counsel for the respondents was correct in stating that the petitioner had been deliberately prolonging the litigation, which had been pending since 2006.
Consequently, the High Court dismissed the petition and imposed a cost of Rs 10,000.
The court ordered,
“I do not find any infirmity, much less perversity in the impugned orders, so both the impugned orders are upheld and the present petition is dismissed with cost of Rs.10,000/- to be paid by petitioner/plaintiff to respondents through respondent no.1 within two weeks.”
Advocate Prabhjyot Singh appeared for the petitioner, while Advocates Sahil Gupta and Arjun Aggarwal represented the respondents.
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