- (1.) The revision is against the order dismissing an application for setting aside an ex parte decree in a suit for specific performance of an agreement alleged to have been executed by the petitioner-defendant in favour of the plaintiff in respect of 16 kanals of agricultural land. The order of dismissal was confirmed in the appellate Court and the revision is against the said order.
(2.) The contention of the petitioner is that in two contemporaneous agreements brought about within a span of 6 weeks, the plaintiff had filed a suit for specific performance. The first agreement was said to have been executed on 06.09.1989 and yet another suit which is now the subject matter on the basis of another agreement dated 24.10.1989. While the first suit was contested, the second suit was said to have been decreed ex parte. The first suit was dismissed by the trial Court and the appeal filed by the plaintiff had also been dismissed. The contention is that if the petitioner had entered a stout contest and ensured that the plaintiff's suit was dismissed, there was simply no reason why he should have deliberately refused to receive the summons in a contemporaneous suit filed and allowed an ex parte decree to be passed. The ex parte decree was on alleged satisfaction of the Presiding Officer that the defendant had refused to accept the summons and hence, liable to be set ex parte.
(3.) The learned counsel for the revision petitioner would point out that at all occasions, the plaintiff was taking summons to a wrong address and even the registered notice that had been ordered to be sent along with the court's summons had been taken to the plaintiff's own address as evident from the registration receipt filed in Court. Even the alleged refusal was a manipulated endorsement with an attesting witness who was none other than the numberdar, who was working directly under the plaintiff. He would urge that neither the attesting witness nor even the court bailiff had not been examined to vouch for the endorsement that the defendant had deliberately refused to receive the same.;