1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELATE JURISDICTION WRIT Petition NO.10839 OF 2009 Ms Shezadi Begum Mohammedali Sayyad & Ors....Petitioners vs. Madhukar Shankar Deshmukh & Anr. ...Respondents Mr.Bipin Joshi for the Petitioners Mr.M.A.Patil for respondent no.2 CORAM :A.S.OKA,J. DATE : JANUARY 4, 2010 P.C. 1 Heard the learned counsel for the Petitioner and the learned counsel for the 2nd respondent. It is not in dispute that the 1st respondent who is the original 1st defendant is not appearing in the suit. Considering the narrow controversy involved, this Petition need not be kept pending as the pendency of the Writ Petition will delay the trial. 2 on an application made by the Petitioners who are the plaintiffs, witness summons was issued to G.B.C.B. CID Mumbai for production of certain documents. The witness summons was duly served. On 24th November 2009, when the suit appeared before the trial court, the witness did not turn up. As the witness did not appear, the learned trial Judge closed the evidence of the plaintiffs. 3 The plaintiffs cannot be held responsible if the witness summons was served and still the concerned witness failed to appear. The trial court ought to have granted a reasonable time to the plaintiffs to take further steps for enforcing the attendance of the 2 concerned witness. Therefore, the order of the trial court closing the evidence of the plaintiffs will have to be set aside and a reasonable time will have to be granted to the plaintiffs to take steps for enforcing the presence of the concerned witness. 4 Hence, the Petition is disposed of by passing the following order : i) The order dated 24th November 2009 is quashed and set aside. Time of 4 weeks from today is granted to the Petitioners to take appropriate steps for enforcing the attendance of the concerned witness. ii)Writ Petition is disposed of in above terms. JUDGE