LEO SUZIND FISHERIES LTD Vs. STATE BANK OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Misc. Appeal is filed by the appellants/original defendants being aggrieved by the order dated 3.5.2002 passed by the learned Presiding Officer of Debts Recovery Tribunal-III, Mumbai on Exh. No. 42 in Original Application No. 629/2000. By the impugned order, the learned Presiding officer only partly allowed the application made by the appellants for adding certain paras in original written, statement and observed that since the other paras made out a case for counter-claim, those paras could not be allowed unless requisite Court fee was paid. The appellants are aggrieved by this order, because according to them, there was nothing like counter claim in the paragraphs, which were proposed to be incorporated by way of amendment, and hence they ought to have been allowed by the learned Presiding Officer, without insisting for payment of Court fees. Since, that prayer was not allowed, the present appeal is filed.

(2.) I have heard Mr. Bhagwat for the appellants and Mr. Kaushik for the respondent Bank. I have also gone through the proceedings.

(3.) AFTER filing of the suit, the applicant Bank had filed two applications. In one of the applications, prayer was made for order of injunction restraining the appellants from interfering with the vessel "Mother Pearl." The other application was for sale of the vessel "Mother Pearl" under Order 39, Rule 6 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. The Civil Court passed an ex pane ad interim order of injunction on 2.12.1996, restraining the appellants from interfering with the vessel "Mother Pearl." The appellants duly filed their affidavit, opposing the said application contending that such order ought not to have been passed unless the Bank was willing to accept the responsibility to pay for the vessel's upkeep and day-to-day expenses. It appears that the applicant Bank had assured for the upkeep of the vessel.