IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No. 7403 of 2011 Date of decision:1st December, 2011 Sharif .......Petitioner Versus Aas Mohd. ........Respondent BEFORE: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIJENDER SINGH MALIK Present: Mr. Salim Ahmed, 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. Sharif, the petitioner has brought this revision petition under the provisions of Article 227 of the Constitution of India for setting aside the order dated 23.05.2011, whereby learned Additional Civil Judge (Sr. Division) Mobile Court, Punhana had struck off his defence. In the suit brought by Aas Mohammad – respondent No. 1, the petitioner is defendant No. 3. The impugned order reveals that on serving the notice of the suit, the petitioner appeared in the Court on 5.02.2011. Till 23.05.2011, when his defence had been struck off, he did not file written statement. Taking that a period of 90 days as Civil Revision No. 7403 of 2011 provided under the Code of Civil Procedure (in short 'CPC') has elapsed, the defence of defendant No. 3 – petitioner has been struck off. I have heard Shri Salim Ahmed, learned counsel for the petitioner and have gone through the record. It is a case where the petitioner – Sharif was not the only defendant. There were two other defendants namely Jan Mohammed and Ibrahim and for the reason that they had appeared later, the case was adjourned to a further date for filing written statement on behalf of defendants No. 1and 2 after the defence of the petitioner had been struck off. Prescribing time limit for filing written statement, limiting the number of opportunities for leading evidence are some of the measures to curtail delays in disposal of the suits. In this case, learned trial court was not able to proceed to the next stage of the case after even striking off the defence of defendant No. 3. The case was adjourned to the next date for filing of the written statement by defendants No. 1 and 2. Learned trial court did not take into consideration the fact that the provisions of Order 8 Rule 1 CPC are not mandatory but are directory. In appropriate cases, time can be extended beyond 90 days for filing the written statement. In the case, when the court was adjourning the case for filing the written statement on behalf of other defendants, opportunity could also be given to respondent No. 3 to file written statement along with them though subject to payment of costs. 2 Civil Revision No. 7403 of 2011 In these circumstances, impugned order seems to have been passed ignoring the position of law with regard to the provisions of Order 8 Rule 1 CPC. The impugned order, thus, cannot be sustained . Consequently, the present revision petition is allowed and the impugned order is set aside subject to payment of ` 5,000/- as costs, directing learned trial court to give one more opportunity to the petitioner- defendant No. 3 to file written statement. [VIJENDER SINGH MALIK] JUDGE 1st December, 2011 Shivani Kaushik 3