Case Title: Mahesh Govindji Trivedi V. Bakul Maganlal Vyas
The Supreme Court stated that there is no prohibition against recording a counterclaim that is submitted far later than a written statement but before problems are defined.
In this instance, the contested counterclaim was submitted over 13 years after the initial declaration. The defendant-appellant had accepted the notice of motion submitted by the single judge of the Bombay High Court presiding over the trial of the relevant lawsuit in order to record the counterclaim that had been filed beyond the deadline. The plaintiffs were effectively denied an appropriate time to submit a reply and to oppose the said notice of motion, therefore the Division Bench of the High Court later overturned the said ruling and remanded the case for further consideration.
If the Division Bench of the High Court had been right in interfering with the decision made by the Single Judge for taking the counter-claim on record, such was the question that the appellant-defendant brought before the Apex Court.
The court noted that in Ashok Kumar Kalra v. Wing Cdr., Order VIII Rule 6-A of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 and Rule 95 of the Bombay High Court Rules were cited. It was decided in Surendra Agnihotri and Ors, 2020 that the defendant cannot bring a counterclaim after the issues have been formulated and the case has considerably advanced.
"While proceeding on the fundamental principles that the rules of procedure are intended to subserve the cause of justice rather than to punish the parties in the conduct of their case, we are clearly of the view that the counter-claim in question could not have been removed out of consideration merely because it was presented after a long time since after filing of the written statement. Indisputably, the counter-claim was filed on 07.09.2018 and until that date, issues had not been framed in the suit...we are clearly of the view that neither the requirements of Order VIII Rule 6-A CPC or Rule 95 of the Rules nor the principles enunciated and explained in Ashok Kumar Kalra (supra) operate as a bar over the prayer of the appellant for taking the belatedly filed counter-claim on record, which was indeed filed before framing of issues." Having made this observation, the bench upheld the appeal and reinstated the single bench order that had been used to record the counterclaim.