Civil Revision No. 7182 of 2008 -1- **** IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No. 7182 of 2008 Date of decision : 14.1.2009 Satbir and another .....Petitioners Versus Gindori Devi and others ...Respondents **** CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE S. D. ANAND Present: Mr. Sharad Kumar Yadav, Advocate for the petitioners. S. D. ANAND, J. The respondents-plaintiffs filed a suit for declaration and possession against the petitioners-defendants. Though the petitioners- defendants did enter appearance through a learned counsel at the trial, they absented thereafter and were proceeded exparte vide order dated 9.11.2006. The suit was decreed exparte, vide judgment and decree dated 20.10.2007. The respondents-plaintiffs, thereafter, filed an execution application to execute the impugned decree. The petitioners-defendants received a notice therein on 16.1.2008. They applied for setting aside of the exparte decree. Along with it, they also filed a plea under Section 5 of the Limitation Act for condonation of delay. The averment, made in support thereof was that the decretal of the suit had not been intimated to them by their learned counsel. Learned Trial Court held that delay in filing of the plea (for setting aside the impugned exparte judgment and decree) had not been Civil Revision No. 7182 of 2008 -2- **** satisfactorily explained. In that context, the learned Trial Court also noticed that the petitioners-defendants had not only filed their pleadings at the trial, the witness examined by the respondents-plaintiffs had also been cross-examined at length. It was thereafter only that they absented from the proceedings. The plea put forward on behalf of the petitioners-defendants is thoroughly misconceived and denuded of merit. As noticed in the impugned order itself, the petitioners-defendants had not only filed their pleadings, they had also cross examined the witnesses examined by the plaintiffs. After exparte proceedings had been ordered against them on 9.11.2006, the learned Trial Court passed exparte decree on 20.10.2007. It is, thus, not a case in which the exparte decree came to be passed immediately after exparte proceedings had been ordered against the petitioners-defendants. The petitioners-defendants have not placed on record any affidavit by their counsel in a bid to offer semblance of explanation under which respondents refrained from putting appearance even after exparte proceedings were ordered against them. The impugned order is relate-able to the material obtaining on the file. There was no averment on behalf of the petitioners-defendants that impugned order contains any averment which may be factually incorrect in character. There is no illegality or perversity in the exercise of judicial exercise by the Trial Court. Dismissed in limine. January 14, 2009 (S. D. ANAND) Pka JUDGE