B.S.A.SWAMY, J. - (1.) TO my mind if the parties adopted a give and take policy, the issue would have been amicably settled by the well wishers of both the parties. As the second respondent is adamant and not heeding the advice of well -wishers and the judicial forums as well, the parties are in the courts for nearly a decade wasting the precious time of the court. Even in this court the respondents did not heed the advice given to them and invited judgment on the merits.
(2.) TO put forth their case both the parties engaged counsel from Madras and arguments in these appeals were heard for nearly three weeks. Before considering the merits of the case, I feel it appropriate to refer to certain observations made by Honourable Justice Chinnappa Reddy exposing how corporate giants rush to courts and how they are converting the courtrooms as their battle ground and fight under the attractive banners of fair play and public interest. While considering the conduct of the board of directors in Life Insurance Corporation of India v. Escorts Ltd, : 1986(8)ECC189 . His Lordship observed as follows (page 560 of Comp Cas): 'In the case before us, as if to befit the might of the financial giants involved, innumerable documents were tiled in the High Court, a truly mountainous record was built up running to several thousand pages and more have been added in this court. In deed, and there was no way out, we also had the advantage of listening to learned and long drawn -out, intelligent and often ingenious arguments, advanced and dutifully heard by us. In the name of justice, we paid due homage to the causes of the high and mighty by devoting precious time to them, reduced, as we were, at times to the position of helpless spectators. Such is the nature of our judicial process that we do this with the knowledge that more worthy causes of lesser men who have been long waiting in the queue have been blocked thereby and the queue has consequently lengthened.'
(3.) I am in a worse position than their Lordships of the Supreme Court in that case, in hearing marathon arguments addressed by counsel for the respondents on technicalities to injunct me from going into the merits of the case knowingfully well that he is having a bad case on the merits, over three weeks referring to voluminous record and the case law cited before me and the number of days for which I was forced to burn the midnight oil in assimilating the arguments and rendering the judgment running into several pages. Even then I cannot say that I have referred to each and every document or pages referred to by both the parties. I feel that I have considered the documents and case law to the extent of relevancy on the issues that have cropped up for consideration.;