Tarun Agarwala, J. - (1.) THE plaintiff filed a suit for the cancellation of a decree in Suit No. 326 of 1997. It transpires that the plaintiff sought repeated adjournments and, eventually by an order dated 4.10.2004, the trial court rejected the adjournment application on the ground that continuous adjournment on five occasions was sought and therefore, no further adjournment would be allowed. An application for the recall of the order was also rejected by an order dated 3.3.2005. Consequently, the plaintiff filed a revision which was allowed and the order dated 4.10.2004 and 3.3.2005 was set -aside on payment of cost of Rs. 200/ -. The defendant, being aggrieved by the order of the revisional court has filed the present writ petition. Heard Sri R.C. Singh, the learned counsel for the petitioner. The learned counsel for the petitioner drew the attention of the Court to the provisions of Order XVII Rule 1 C.P.C., as amended by Act No. 46 of 1999, which reads as under: 1. Court may grant time and adjourn hearing - [1] The Court may, if sufficient cause is shown, at any stage of the suit grant time to the parties or to any of them, and may from time to time adjourn the hearing of the suit for reasons to be recorded in writing. Provided that no such adjournment shall be granted more than three times to a party during of the suit. (2) Cost of adjournment - In every such case the Court shall fix a day for the further hearing of the suit, and [shall make such orders as to costs occasioned by the adjournment or such higher costs as the court deems fit]; Provided that - - (a) when the hearing of the suit has commenced, it shall be continued from day today until all the witnesses in attendance have been examined, unless the Court finds that, for the exceptional reason to be recorded by it, the adjournment of the hearing beyond the following day is necessary. (b) no adjournment shall be granted at the request of a party, except where the circumstances are beyond the control of that party, (c) the fact that the pleader of a party is engaged in another Court, shall not be a ground for adjournment, (d) where the illness of the pleader or his inability to conduct the case for any reason, other than his being engaged in another Court, is put forward as a ground for adjournment, the Court shall not grant the adjournment unless it is satisfied that the party applying for adjournment could not have engaged another pleader in time, (e) where a witness is present in Court but a party or his pleader is not present or the party or his pleader, though present in Court, is not ready to examine or cross -examine the witness, the Court may, if it thinks fit, record the statement of the witness and pass such orders as it thinks fit dispensing with the examination -in -chief or cross -examination of the witness, as the case may be, by the party or his pleader not present or not ready as forwarded.
(2.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner further submitted that the proviso clearly indicates that no adjournment shall be granted more than three times to a party during the hearing of a suit and submitted that the word "shall", as indicated in the proviso, clearly indicates, that the provision was mandatory and therefore it was no longer open to the revisional court to grant further adjournment, especially, when adjournment on three previous occasions had already been taken. The learned counsel, consequently submitted, that the order of the revisional court was wholly illegal and without jurisdiction and against the teeth of the mandatory provision provided under Order XVII Rule 1 C.P.C. In the opinion of the Court, the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is bereft of merit. The provision of Order XVII Rule 1 C.P.C. is procedural in nature and even though the provision is couched in a negative manner, it does not mean that under exceptional circumstances, the court is not empowered to grant an adjournment. The Court has the inherent power to grant an adjournment in exceptional circumstances on sufficient reasons being recorded. In the present case, the revisional court had rightly granted the adjournment upon payment of cost of Rs. 200/ -. The Supreme Court in Sheikh Salim Haji Abdul Khayumsab v. Kumar and others : AIR 2006 SC 396 has held that the provisions of Order 8 Rule 1 C.P.C. is not mandatory in nature and that the Court has the inherent power to grant further time to file a written statement even after the expiry of 90 days. The same principle would squarely apply in Order XVII Rule 1 C.P.C. Consequently, I do not find any error in the impugned revisional order. The writ petition fails and is dismissed.;