THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.613 of 2011 Date:02.09.2011 Between: Adoth Bodiya ..... Petitioner AND Bamar Ajay Singh .....Respondent Counsel for the Petitioner : Sri Nagaraju Naguru Counsel for Respondent : None appeared The Court made the following: ORDER: Order, dated 31.01.2011, in I.A.No.101 of 2009 in O.S.No.217 of 2007 on the file of the learned Additional Junior Civil Judge, Miryalguda, Nalgonda District, is the subject matter of this Civil Revision Petition. In spite of service of notice, no one entered appearance on behalf of the respondent and he remained unrepresented at the hearing. The petitioner is the defendant in the suit filed by the respondent. The suit was originally instituted in the Court of the learned Junior Civil Judge, Kothagudem, Khammam District. After completion of trial, the suit was transferred to the file of the learned Additional Junior Civil Judge, Miryalguda, Nalgonda District, on the point of jurisdiction. After transfer, the evidence of the plaintiff and the defendant was re-opened and they were again examined as P.W-1 and R.W-1 respectively. At that stage, the petitioner filed I.A.No.101 of 2009 for permission to file an additional written statement. The said application having been rejected by the Court below, the petitioner filed the present Civil Revision Petition. A perusal of the affidavit, filed in support of the said interlocutory application, would show that the petitioner sought to file an additional written statement for pressing into service Section 9 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (for short ‘the Act’) to bring home the plea that under the said provision, a person can become holder in due course only before the money under the negotiable instrument became payable. The petitioner sought to place reliance on the plaint averments in paragraph 2 to the effect that in spite of the repeated demands made by the transferor of the promissory note, the defendant did not choose to repay the pronote amount and that, thereafter, the transferor has transferred the pronote in favour of the plaintiff on 01.06.2004 for a consideration of Rs.30,000/-. A perusal of the order under revision shows that no reasons have been assigned by the Court below in coming to the conclusion that the said I.A. filed by the petitioner is devoid of merit. Be that as it may, in the nature of the pleading which the petitioner is proposing to put forth, this Court is of the opinion that there is no need for the petitioner to file an additional written statement as his proposed plea is based on the plaintiff’s own averment coupled with the provisions of Section 9 of the Act. Since the issue that is proposed to be raised by the petitioner being purely a question of law, based on Section 9 of the Act, with reference to the plaintiff’s pleading in the plaint, it is not necessary for the petitioner to file an additional written statement. Instead, the petitioner shall be free to raise the said plea even in the absence of a specific plea taken in the written statement. In the light of the above conclusion, this Civil Revision Petition is disposed of subject to the observations made hereinabove. As a sequel to disposal of the Civil Revision Petition, C.R.P.M.P.No.873 of 2011 filed by the petitioner for interim relief is disposed of as infructuous. _____________________________ C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 02nd September2011 DR