IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No. 811 of 2008 Date of Decision : September 03, 2008 Atma Tube Products Limited .....Petitioner Versus M/s Steel Authority of India Ltd. and others .....Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR JUSTICE T.P.S. MANN Present : Mr. Anand Chhibbar, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Sanjeev Sharma, Advocate for respondent No. 1. T.P.S. MANN, J. Challenge in the revision is to the order passed by the learned trial Court on December 24, 2007, whereby the application filed by defendant No.1/petitioner to recall witness of plaintiff/respondent No.1 for further cross-examination, was dismissed. Initially, the suit was filed under Order XXXVII C.P.C. by respondent No. 1 against defendant/petitioner M/s Atma Tube Products Limited and others for recovery of Rs. 2,82,23,956/-. Later on, the suit was ordered to be treated as an ordinary suit. On 7.4.2003, Gulzar Singh was examined as PW4. Thereafter, the case was fixed for recording of the evidence of the defendants, who submitted a list of witnesses on 18.9.2004. The defendants also summoned aforementioned Gulzar Singh- PW4 as their witness along with relevant records as mentioned in the list of witnesses for the reason that said Gulzar Singh in his cross- examination as PW4 did not produce the relevant records required for cross-examination. It was followed by an application filed by plaintiff/respondent No. 1 for deletion of name of Gulzar Singh from the list of defendants' witnesses. This application was allowed by the learned trial Court with a direction to the defendants to summon any other concerned official of the plaintiff-Company with the required records. According to the defendants, the said record was never produced by the plaintiff-Company or defendants' witnesses, which was in possession and in custody of the plaintiff. Therefore, an application was filed by defendant-petitioner on October 20, 2007 under Order XVIII Rule 17 read with Section 151 C.P.C. to recall Gulzar Singh-PW4 for his re-cross examination. It has been dismissed vide impugned order. Order passed by learned trial Court on 23.12.2004, while allowing the application of the plaintiff-respondent for deletion of name of Gulzar Singh from the list of defendants' witnesses has already attained finality, having not been challenged in any Court. Under the garb of the application in hand filed by the defendant-petitioner under Order XVIII Rule 17 read with Section 151 C.P.C., it is trying to subvert order dated 23.12.2004. Moreover, the defendants-petitioner had at one point of time been proceeded ex parte in the suit. An application filed by them for setting aside the ex parte proceedings was allowed by the learned trial Court on 5.9.2006, which order was challenged by plaintiff-respondent by filing Civil Revision No. 5257 of 2006, which was disposed of on 12.1.2007, whereby the order impugned therein was upheld with a direction to the defendants-petitioner to conclude their evidence on 16.2.2007 and in case the same was not done, then only one another date of 15 days be granted for producing and concluding their evidence at their own responsibility. It was also directed that if the defendants failed to conclude their evidence on the adjourned date, their evidence shall stand closed. In view of the said order, the application submitted by the defendant-petitioner under Order XVIII Rule 17 read with Section 151 C.P.C. had no legs to stand upon, the same having been filed with the sole purpose of delaying the conclusion of the trial proceedings, which was pending since the year 1996. Moreover, as is clear from the impugned order, the defendants never bothered to summon the record through any other official of the plaintiff-company and kept on insisting upon the production of Gulzar Singh-PW4 for his re-cross examination. The impugned order passed by the learned trial Court does not suffer from any illegality or infirmity. The revision is, accordingly, dismissed. ( T.P.S. MANN ) September 03, 2008 JUDGE satish Whether to be referred to the Reporters : YES / NO