IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No. 6686 of 2011 Date of decision:3rd November, 2011 Balwinder Singh .......Petitioner Versus Narinjan Singh and another ........Respondents BEFORE: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIJENDER SINGH MALIK Present: Mr. Pankaj Jain, Advocate for the petitioner. 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes/No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?Yes/No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes/No Vijender Singh Malik, J. Balwinder Singh has brought this revision petition under the provisions of Article 227 of the Constitution of India for setting aside the order dated 18.10.2011 (Annexure P-5) passed by Civil Judge (Senior Division), Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (SAS Nagar), Mohali, whereby his defence in the civil suit brought against him and others has been struck off. Narinjan Singh, respondent No. 1 had filed a suit for recovery of `2,46,170/- as principal and `1,32,931 as interest against Balwinder Singh,petitioner and one Kulbir Singh. In the said suit, defendant no. 2, Kulbir Singh had filed an application under Order 7 Rule 11 and section 9 of CPC for rejecting the plaint. Written Civil Revision No. 6686 of 2011 statement was however, not filed by both of them. Dismissing the application filed by defendant No. 2, vide the impugned order, learned trial court has given an opportunity to defendant no. 2 to file written statement. However, learned trial court has struck off the defence of defendant no. 1 for his failure to file written statement with the statutory period of 90 days. Aggrieved by the aforesaid order, the present revision petition has been filed. I have heard Mr. Pankaj Jain, learned counsel for the petitioner and have gone through the record. The impugned order cannot be sustained for two reasons. The first is that both the defendants had appeared at the same time and while opportunity has been given to defendant no. 2 to file his written statement on 18.10.2011 for 17.11.2011, the defence of defendant no. 1 has been struck off. There was no reason for discriminating between the two defendants. The second reason is that the case was pending for consideration of application under Order 7 Rule 11 and Section 9 CPC. If that application would have been allowed, there would not have been any requirement of filing written statement by the defendants. So the delay, if any, in this case has occurred on account of the failure of the court to decide that application. After dismissing the application, when opportunity was being given to defendant no. 2 to file written statement, it should not have been refused to defendant no. 1. 2 Civil Revision No. 6686 of 2011 For the reasons, I accept the revision petition and direct learned trial court to permit defendant no. 1, petitioner to file written statement along with defendant no. 2 on the date fixed in the case. [VIJENDER SINGH MALIK] JUDGE 3rd November, 2011 Shivani Kaushik 3