IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Civil Revision No.436 of 2009 Birendra Kumar Jha @ Lalanji, son of Shri Shrinandan Jha, resident of Village- Gangapur, P.S. Pandaul, District- Madhubani, presently residing at Health Centre, Gausnagar, P.S. Gaighat, District- Muzaffarpur ---- Defendant ----Applicant ---- Petitioner. Versus Indranand Jha, son of Shri Uma Kant Jha, resident of Village- Shahpur, P.S. Pandaul, District- Madhubani ---- Plaintiff---- Opposite Party ---- Opposite Party. ---------------------------------- 3. 23.11.2011 Heard Mr. Murari Narayan Choudhary for the petitioner, and Mr. Ashok Kumar Prasad for the opposite party. The defendant of Money Suit No.15 of 1996 has preferred this civil revision application under the provisions of Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and is aggrieved by the order dated 24.1.2009, passed by the learned Sub-Ordinate Judge I, Madhubani in Misc. Case No.12 of 2003, whereby his application for recall of ex-parte judgment and decree in the suit has been rejected. 2. We have perused the materials on record and considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties. The present petitioner was the defendant in Money Suit No.15 of 1996, which was disposed of ex-parte by judgment dated 29.6.1996. The defendant thereafter filed Misc. Case No. 21 of 1996, for recall of ex-parte judgment 2 and decree which was dismissed by order dated 20.11.1999, inter alia, on the ground that he had not prosecuted his application under Order 9, Rule 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure ever since 1996. Thereafter the defendant filed his application under Order 9, Rule 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure for recall of the ex-parte judgment and decree which was registered as Misc. Case No. 12 of 2003, and has been rejected by the impugned order. 3. It is thus evident that the defendant has been negligent all through. The suit was decreed ex-parte. Thereafter he filed Misc. Case No. 21 of 1996 which he did not prosecute till the date of dismissal 20.11.1999. After lapse of four years, he filed the present misc. case which has been rejected by the impugned order. We agree with the order of the learned Sub-Ordinate Judge that in view of utter negligence attributable to the defendant, it is not a fit case where the ex-parte judgment and decree may be recalled. 4. The following portion of the book by Fali S. Nariman, entitled ‘India’s legal system : Can it be saved”, is relevant in the present context: 3 “More than one hundred years ago, a law member in the Government of India (Hobhouse) recorded in a minute dated 5 September 1872 (on the Bill leading to the Privy Council Appeal Act, 1874) the following observations: In considering what limit should be assigned to the power of appealing, our leading maxim is, that it is the interest of the commonwealth to have and end of law suits. No man has a right to unlimited draughts on the time and money of the public in order to get his private affairs settled as he wishes. The state’s duty is discharged when it has provided such a reasonable amount of attention and skill and honesty as will satisfy reasonable men that their causes, have been decided, erroneously or otherwise, on the merit, and according to the best ability of the judge, and so will prevent them from feeling that resentment of sheer injustice which drives people to take the law into their hands and to wage private war. Upon this principle all laws place some limits to litigation. And so have we placed limits to the power of appealing. Pithily put, and elegantly phrased. The portion about no man having a right to unlimited draughts on the time and money of the public in order to get his private affairs settled as he wished was quoted by Justice Gajendragadkar (who later became Chief Justice of India) in one of the early reports of the Law Commission of India, but despite what was so wisely said by Mr. Hobhouse and again by Chief Justice Gajendragadkar, our laws continue to provide (by way of appeals, reviews and revisions) unlimited draughts on the time and money of the public in order to get private affairs ultimately settled. For instance, we have now abolished second appeals, and yet lawyers go on arguing endlessly about the maintainability of intra- 4 court appeals under special laws.” 5. I am reminded of the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Bibek Debroy in his book entitled ‘In the Dock: Absurdities of Indian Law’, that the pending litigations in this country without any addition thereto, will take 324 years for disposal. These observations were made more than two decades ago, and the situation has further deteriorated. One Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in one of his speeches recently has made observations that it will now take 350 years or so to dispose of the pending cases. 6. The civil revision application is dismissed. Vinay/ ( S. K. Katriar, J.)